Tether's Relentless Pursuit of Justice Takes a Dark Turn

To freeze or not to freeze, that is the question.

Written by: Eric, Foresight News

On September 2nd, Beijing time, BeInCrypto reported that two Thai businessmen have taken Tether to court, claiming that the company froze their USDT worth $42.4 million.

The lawsuit states that on October 30, 2025, their wallet address was inexplicably blacklisted by Tether, following an informal request from U.S. government officials. There was no subpoena, no court order, and no legal procedures involved. It wasn't until over three months later that the U.S. government obtained a formal seizure order, demanding Tether to destroy this batch of USDT and issue an equivalent amount of new coins to the government wallet.

The USDT contract includes privileged functions controlled by Tether, which can only be invoked by Tether's owner multi-signature wallet:

• addBlackList(address): Adds an address to the blacklist (freezes it). A frozen address cannot transfer USDT (the balance remains visible, but transfers will fail). It can usually still receive incoming USDT, but will also be stuck once received.
• destroyBlackFunds(address): After an address has been blacklisted, this function directly zeros out and permanently destroys the USDT balance of that address, while reducing the total supply. This is an irreversible action.

The reason for the freeze is that these USDT are related to funds involved in a pig-butchering scam case. The plaintiffs claim they purchased the USDT legitimately and deny any connection to the case. Most importantly, Tether froze millions of dollars solely based on a single statement from the