Tether froze $72 million in USDT after blacklisting a Tron wallet that received a 120.2 million USDT transfer on June 11. The action marks another aggressive intervention by the stablecoin issuer, which has now frozen well over $1 billion in funds across multiple incidents in 2026 alone.
On-chain analyst ZachXBT quickly traced the flow of funds from the flagged wallet. More than $12 million moved into KuCoin deposit addresses. Another $8 million went to instant exchanges, and an additional $8 million was bridged to Bitcoin and Ethereum through Near Intents.
The timing of those transactions coincided with a notable Monero buying spree that pushed XMR’s price from $330 to $420.
How Tether’s blacklist works
Tether’s ability to freeze funds stems from a function baked directly into the USDT smart contract on supported chains, including Tron’s TRC-20 protocol. When an address gets blacklisted, any USDT held there becomes immovable. The process can happen in seconds.
