Tether Freezes $4.2 Billion in USDT

This cumulative $4.2 billion in frozen USDT is the result of Tether's ongoing collaboration with global law enforcement agencies. The company has assisted agencies from over 64 countries, including the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Secret Service. A significant portion of these freezes, approximately $3.5 billion, has occurred since 2023, indicating a ramp-up in enforcement activities. The frozen funds are linked to a variety of illicit activities, including "pig-butchering" scams, human trafficking, terrorism financing, and sanctions evasion. In one recent action, Tether helped the U.S. Department of Justice seize nearly $61 million in USDT connected to a pig-butchering scheme. Another notable freeze involved approximately $544 million at the request of Turkish authorities investigating illegal online betting and money laundering. While a detailed breakdown of the entire $4.2 billion across all blockchains is not public, on-chain data provides some insight. As of early 2026, real-time trackers showed over $3.46 billion in frozen USDT across the Ethereum and Tron networks alone. The ability to freeze assets is a feature of the USDT smart contract, allowing Tether to blacklist addresses and prevent the transfer of funds when a legitimate request is made by law enforcement. This amount represents a fraction of Tether's total circulating supply, which now exceeds $180 billion. The increasing frequency and scale of these freezes highlight the growing role of stablecoin issuers in combating financial crime within the crypto ecosystem. According to the analytics firm Elliptic, by the end of 2025, Tether and its competitor Circle had collectively blacklisted around 5,700 wallets, with approximately three-quarters of them holding USDT at the time of the freeze.