Tether temporarily blacklists 1.45 million dollars in THORChain protocol vaults

Stablecoin issuer Tether temporarily blacklisted four THORChain vault addresses containing approximately 1.45 million USDT, according to statements made by network technical co-founder Chad Barraford. Cointelegraph reported that Barraford publicly accused Tether of freezing the funds on Friday before reversing the decision hours later. Trading resumed shortly after the addresses were unfrozen. [1][2][6]

The blacklisting impacted about 1.45 million USDT held across four wallets, Cointelegraph and TOKENPOST reported. AMBCrypto reported that the addresses were unfrozen after approximately three hours, leaving the funds intact. Barraford stated that the assets were frozen and subsequently released without any explanation from the stablecoin issuer. [1][2][3][4]

THORChain is a cross-chain protocol built on the Cosmos SDK that uses continuous liquidity pools and an automated market maker model for trust-minimized transactions. The network uses node operators bonding native RUNE tokens for security. CryptoRank reported that the temporary freeze specifically targeted the protocol's TRON vaults. [5][8]

As FTMQ Crypto reported earlier, this incident follows previous scrutiny regarding Tether's address-freezing actions, including a lawsuit filed by Conduit Technology in a New York federal court seeking access to 2.76 million frozen USDT. [9][10]