While the crypto community is still talking about the US government banning the Ethereum mixed platform Tornado Cash, stablecoin issuer Tether Holdings Limited revealed Wednesday that the company “will not freeze Tornado Cash addresses,” and in a recent blog post on the matter published by Tether, the company said it is awaiting instructions from law enforcement.
Tether has no plans to freeze the private wallet associated with Tornado Cash and is waiting to hear from law enforcement officials
On August 8, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the U.S. Treasury Department’s financial watchdog, banned the Ethereum blended application Tornado Cash, and OFAC’s enforcement of sanctions has been controversial ever since. Of course, OFAC’s actions have caused a ripple effect, with many companies like Circle Financial and Coinbasethe Centre consortium, Github, Discord, and others taking action. For example, developers weresuspended from Github, the Tornado Cash Discord server was removed, and pressreportsindicated that Centre blacklisted dozens of Ethereum addressesand froze 75,000 USDC
Tether stands by its decision not to freeze Tornado Cash addresses and awaits instructions from law enforcement https://t.co/zpsI9lKLlf
– Tether (@Tether_to) . 24 Aug 2022
According to a Tether Holdings Limited blog postpublished 16 days after the OFAC ban The company explained that, at this time, it has notfrozen the It explained that USDTassets held within the Tornado Cash Mixer are not frozen. Tether states that it is in regular coordination with law enforcement authorities and is in daily contact with “key law enforcement officers.” If a law enforcement officer provides a legitimate request to freeze a private wallet, Tether “will comply with the freeze,” the company added, but “will not freeze the wallet of an exchange/service.”
Tether’s blog post continues.
So far, OFAC has not indicated that issuers of stablecoins are expected to freeze secondary market addresses operated by persons or entities that are publicly listed on OFAC’s SDN list or sanctioned by OFAC. Moreover, U.S. law enforcement agencies and regulators have not made such requests, even though they are in almost daily contact with U.S. law enforcement agencies whose requests always provide accurate details.
A premature freeze of addresses unilaterally could be a bad move, Tether says,
Additionally, Tether says that choosing to unilaterally freeze addresses in the secondary market may very well be “a very disruptive and reckless move.” The company also detailed instances in which law enforcement agencies have told the company not to freeze suspicious private wallets so that suspects in an investigation would be warned and not liquidate their funds. Tether’s blog post also calls out many stablecoin issuers, such as Paxos, a regulated company in New York.
Tether said Paxos did not freeze the Tornado Cash wallet, and. of USDTissuer of the decentralized financial (defi) stablecoin DAI, Makerdao, further stated that it did not proceed with a freeze of any kind. However, Tether appears to oppose the USDC issuer’s move.” We believe that USDC’s move to blacklist the Tornado Cash smart contract, if made without direction from U.S. authorities, was premature and could have jeopardized the work of other regulators and law enforcement agencies around the world,” Wednesday’s blog post added. . What do you think about Tether’s blog post stating that it will not freeze
64} What do you think about the company’s blog post stating that it has not frozen USDTrelated to Tornado Cash and is waiting for instructions from law enforcement What do you think about the company’s comments about USDC issuers blacklisting stablecoin wallets? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
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