The Tether management deemed it premature for USDC to freeze the addresses without receiving approval from US authorities. It was highlighted that unilaterally freezing secondary market addresses might be quite disruptive. The addresses that have been sanctioned by OFAC have not been requested to be frozen by US authorities or law enforcement, it was said.
It was claimed that several DeFi firms blocked the addresses after the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) froze Tornado Cash. Additionally, Tornado Cash-related addresses had been blacklisted by Circle, a rival of Tether and the creator of the USDC stablecoin.
Tether: No Specific Request From OFAC Regarding Tornado Cash
The business said that it had not been given any particular instructions on the freezing of Tornado Cash addresses. The expectation that a stablecoin issuer will freeze secondary market addresses has not yet been stated by OFAC. Additionally, according to Tether, the USDC-linked DAI stablecoin did not request a freeze.
The Paxos stablecoin has yet to freeze wallets, the Tether team wrote in the business blog. According to Tether, Paxos, which has a valuation of close to $20 billion, has not frozen Tornado Cash wallets.
Supposed Developer Detained
The U.S. government imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash across the nation as part of a campaign against the cryptocurrency mixer. A suspected Tornado Cash creator was detained, according to a report from the Netherlands' Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) earlier this month. Tornado Cash was charged with money laundering for cybercrimes on August 8 when OFAC officials announced the sanctions. They defined Tornado as a virtual currency mixer that conceals the revenues of national cybercrimes.
