How Tether freezes a USDT wallet

What a freeze actually does

Tether publishes USDT as a contract on each blockchain it supports. That contract includes a list of blocked addresses. When Tether adds an address to the list, the contract stops accepting transfers FROM it. The coins stay in the wallet and stop moving.

One detail matters and is widely got wrong: on USDT the block applies to SENDING only. USDT can still arrive at a blocked address — and once it arrives, it cannot leave either. Anyone who sends USDT to a blocked wallet has put it somewhere it cannot come back from.

This is not how every stablecoin behaves. USDC blocks a listed address in both directions, so a transfer to it fails as well. If you are checking whether it is safe to send to an address, the answer depends on which coin you are sending.

The wallet still works for everything else. Other tokens in the same wallet are unaffected, because each token is a separate contract with its own list. A wallet blocked for USDT can still move USDC, ether, or anything else it holds.

Nothing about this requires the wallet owner to be notified, and nothing about it requires a court order in most cases. The block takes effect when the transaction adding the address is confirmed.

What destruction does, and how it differs

Blocking and destroying are separate actions. After an address is blocked, Tether can issue a second transaction that destroys the blocked balance. The coins cease to exist and the supply is reduced by the same amount.

This is the difference between money that is stuck and money that is gone. A blocked wallet may be unblocked later; a destroyed balance cannot be restored, because there is nothing left to restore.

On the chains we check, we have recorded 2,316 destruction events against USDT wallets, as of 17 August 2026.

How often it happens

We have recorded 11,094 wallets blocked by Tether across the chains we check, as of 17 August 2026. That is the largest number for any company in our records by a wide margin.

Across every other stablecoin we track, we have recorded 45 destruction events in total. Blocking is used by several companies; destroying a balance is, on this evidence, overwhelmingly Tether's practice.

Each blockchain is separate

Tether deploys USDT separately on each blockchain, and each deployment keeps its own blocked list. Being blocked on one chain does not block the same address on another.

This matters if you hold USDT in more than one place. Our address check covers every chain we track at once, so you do not have to check them one at a time.

Can a freeze be reversed?

Yes — the contract has a function to remove an address from the list, and it has been used. We have recorded removals as well as additions, and a wallet that was blocked and later unblocked shows both events in its history on this site.

We do not publish how to request that, because we are not Tether and we do not speak for them. What we publish is the record of what happened.