Tether Freezes Over $500 Million USDT in 30 Days

Key Insights

• Tether has frozen $514 million USDT in the past 30 days while blacklisting 376 addresses.
• Around 98% of the frozen USDT and addresses blacklisted are on the Tron network.
• Odds of Tether unfreezing USDT or removing an address from the blacklist are 1 in 10. That’s becaue it burns $815 million USDT in one year.

Stablecoin issuer Tether has frozen $514 million in USDT over the past 30 days across the Ethereum and TRON Networks. Data from the BlockSec USDT Freeze tracker revealed this, showing increasing enforcement action by the firm.

A broader time gap also showed that Tether has frozen $1.49 billion USDT in the past six months. At the same time, one-year volume now stands at $2.21 billion.

The data shows that USDT freezing has increased substantially in 2026. Already,$1.33 billion USDT has been frozen in 2026, with both January and April each seeing over $450 million USDT frozen.

At its current rate, Tether has already frozen more USDT in less than five months than it did in 2025. At the time, the firm had blacklisted only 4,163 unique addresses on Ethereum and Tron. They had also frozen a total of $1.26 billion.

Interestingly, BlockSec data tracks only freezes on Tron and Ethereum. That may not capture the full picture, as USDT operates across over 100 blockchain networks. Tether itself disclosed in February 2026 that it had frozen around $4.2 billion in the last three years.

The firm has shared details on some of these enforcement actions. This revealed in April that it froze over $344 million in cooperation with the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Later reports show the addresses were linked to Iran sanctions evasion.

Majority of Frozen USDT is on the Tron Network

Interestingly, an analysis of the freeze data shows that Tether is mostly freezing USDT on the TRON network. Of the 376 blacklisted addresses as of May 8, 333 are on the TRON network. On the other hand, only 43 addresses are on Ethereum.

The disparity is even more pronounced in frozen value, with only $8.77 million frozen on the Ethereum network. By comparison, $505.92 million in USDT has been frozen on TRON.

This disparity is quite significant given how close both networks are in total USDT supply. While Tron leads with 87.74 billion USDT, Ethereum is a close second with 83.21 billion USDT.

Thus, the fact that 98% of USDT freezes occur on Tron suggests that most illicit USDT activity occurs on the blockchain network.

In the past year, only 713 addresses have been blacklisted. Also, $313.67 million in USDT has been frozen on the Ethereum network. $1.89 billion USDT has been frozen on Tron with 4,248 addresses blacklisted.

Chances of Tether Unfreezing Frozen USDT is 1 in 10

Tether highlights its prompt freezing of USDT to show its commitment to compliance. The company collaborates with law enforcement agencies to demonstrate this focus.

In a recent press release, the company CEO, Paolo Ardoino, said USDT is not a haven for illicit activity. He claimed that the firm works with over 340 law enforcement agencies in 65 countries.

However, data also shows that unfreezing USDT is very rare. In the past 30 days, only 84 addresses have been removed from the blacklist, with $19.35 million unfrozen. Tether has also unfrozen a total of 232.24 million USDT in the past year while removing 430 addresses from the blacklist.

This implies that the chances of unfreezing USDT and removing an address from the blacklist are around 10%. Data shows a higher chance of burning frozen USDT. Over the past year, Tether burned 36% of all frozen USDT.

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