Large-scale wallet freezing events have occurred on the Tron blockchain. According to on-chain data tracking, on January 11th alone, Tether performed freezing operations on five different wallet addresses on the Tron blockchain, involving a total of $182 million worth of USDT.

From the data, the sizes of the restricted wallets vary widely — the smallest holding about $12 million, and the largest nearly $50 million. The five wallets were almost simultaneously restricted, making this coordinated action rare in recent single-day events on the Tron chain.

The background is that Tether officially launched a new wallet freezing policy at the end of 2023. In simple terms, to comply with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list(OFAC), Tether actively freezes addresses suspected of violations. The blacklist operation on January 11th was one of the larger instances since this policy was implemented.

This also reflects a new normal for stablecoin issuers under regulatory pressure — although blockchain emphasizes decentralization, in practice, centralized stablecoins like USDT still retain the power to freeze funds, and market participants need to stay alert to this.