Hi HODLers,
On this lazy Saturday morning, I just wanted to hammer in another crypto basics. USDT also called Tether is not a decentralized stablecoins. A recent news shows it once again Tether Freezes $160M of USDT Stablecoin on Ethereum Blockchain
In addition to the many reports and audits showing that it is not entirely backed by 1USD (also to be fair it is not so far off), my main concerns have always been:
- It is controlled by one entity and therefore can freeze someone's account/assets
- It is not very liked by authority so its centralized feature could back fire as governments can go after the Tether foundation/company. If you want a centralized stablecoin backed by 1$ go with USDC, at least the US Government gave them a greenlight to operate.
Tether does it again and freezes $160mn without any disclosed "reason"
- Tether has blacklisted 563 addresses on the Ethereum blockchain since November 2017, according to the Bloxy block explorer.
- Tether has bee working with authorities to supervise suspicious accounts. It would be great if Tether would explain what they mean by suspicious...
- On January, 13th, Tether has frozen three addresses on the Ethereum blockchain holding $160m USDt upon a request from law enforcement. As of today, there has been no information communicated by Tether concerning the reason of this freeze.