Overview
- The blacklist targeted four of THORChain’s six Tron vaults on Friday, freezing about 1.45 million USDT and forcing the protocol to suspend Tron-based cross-chain swaps and liquidity-provider actions.
- Tether removed the blacklist roughly three hours later, restoring the frozen balances and allowing Tron swaps and deposits to resume.
- THORChain co-founder Chad Barraford said the team got no prior notice from Tether, and the four affected vaults held about 93% of the protocol’s Tron-side USDT, creating a single-point failure for liquidity providers.
- Tether’s TRC-20 token contract includes an addBlackList function that prevents addresses from sending USDT, a power the company has used more than 11,000 times historically in cases tied to law enforcement or sanctions.
- Key questions remain: Tether has not explained the reason for the action, 19 other wallets stayed blacklisted after the reversal, and the episode could prompt THORChain and other DeFi projects to change how they hold stablecoins and how providers weigh issuer risk.