Tether Accused of Freezing THORChain USDT Vaults Without Warning
According to Chad Barraford, who serves as the network's technical co-founder, the assets underwent freezing followed by unfreezing with no clarification provided.
Chad Barraford, who holds the position of technical co-founder at THORChain, has leveled accusations against Tether, the stablecoin issuer, claiming the company blacklisted the network's USDt (USDT) vault addresses without providing any explanation, only to reverse the freeze several hours afterward.
Through a post made on X this past Friday, Barraford disclosed that Tether had placed THORChain vault addresses on a blacklist, resulting in approximately 1.45 million USDT being frozen collectively across the network's four separate wallets. Roughly two hours following his initial announcement, he shared updates indicating that trading operations would recommence following the company's decision to unfreeze all affected addresses.
"We don't know why this choice was made and have had no comms with USDT before this action and are actively reaching out to have a conversation," said Barraford before the addresses were unfrozen. "We hope that this was made in error / misunderstanding."
Cointelegraph made attempts to contact both Tether and THORChain seeking additional information regarding the incident, however no immediate response was provided from either party.
In developments from earlier during the current week, Conduit Technology, a platform specializing in cross-border payments, initiated legal proceedings against Tether, claiming that the stablecoin issuer froze $2.76 million worth of USDt held in a wallet connected to an investigation that was initiated by Brazilian authorities in 2024. Additionally, two individuals of Thai nationality filed a lawsuit against the stablecoin company during the month of August for purportedly freezing $42.4 million in USDt following what was described as an "informal request" originating from US Homeland Security Investigations.