Tether, the largest issuer of stablecoin (USDT), announced yesterday (9) that it will further collaborate with the US government regulatory agency OFAC. It has initiated a voluntary wallet freezing policy and has already proactively frozen a batch of suspicious wallets, one of which is associated with the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group.
In order to combat suspicious transactions, Tether voluntarily froze 41 wallets related to the Special Designated Nationals (SDN) list of the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Saturday (9). This action is part of Tether’s efforts to create a safe and reliable environment for global users. The company explained and announced this new “voluntary” wallet freezing policy in an official blog post, demonstrating its intention to further cooperate with US government agencies.
Related to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group, the frozen wallets have been using the coin mixer Tornado Cash in the past six months, and one of the wallets is associated with the $625 million Ronin Bridge attack, which has been identified by the US Department of the Treasury as the work of the Lazarus Group.
According to a blog post, Tether will extend the sanctions measures it implements on wallets on its own platform to the secondary market. This measure is taken in closer cooperation with global regulatory and law enforcement agencies to protect the positive efforts made in the use of stablecoins.
To comply with this policy, Tether has taken additional preventive measures, including freezing wallets that have been added to the SDN list before. The main purpose of this approach is to actively prevent any possible abuse of Tether tokens and enhance security measures. Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, commented on this:
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Lazarus Group
Paolo Ardoino
Tether
USDT
stablecoin
