Tether freezes $72 million USDT after suspicious transactions via Tron

Tether freezes a wallet address containing as much as $72 million in USDT after blockchain researcher ZachXBT exposed suspicious transactions. An address on the Tron network received $120.2 million in USDT on 11 June and quickly moved those funds to various destinations, including crypto exchanges and instant exchanges. Large amounts of Monero were also bought, pushing the XMR price up sharply.

This is a striking case where the suspect entity used multiple channels simultaneously to obscure its tracks. Via Near Intents, money also flowed to Bitcoin and Ethereum. Tether responded swiftly and blacklisted the related address, freezing $72 million in USDT.

Tether is available at OKX and Bybit.

Money flows via exchanges and instant swaps

According to ZachXBT, more than $12 million from the suspicious address went to KuCoin deposit addresses. In addition, over $8 million went to instant exchanges and another $8 million via Near Intents to Bitcoin and Ethereum. The spread across so many different channels suggests a deliberate attempt to disguise the money.

A transaction analysis by TRM Labs shows how the funds passed through intermediary addresses and a so-called KuCoin nested service. All movements can be traced back to the original Tron address that received the massive sum. The freeze by Tether occurred within 30 seconds of the address being flagged, as shown in the USDT/USDC Ban List monitoring image.

Monero price surges on large buy orders

A striking side effect of the entire operation is the impact on Monero. The entity placed large buy orders for XMR, the privacy coin par excellence. This drove the Monero price from $330 to $420. a rise of about 27% in a short period. Privacy coins like Monero are popular among people who want transactions to be difficult to trace, making the choice of XMR in this case hardly surprising.

ZachXBT shared his findings via his Telegram channel, viewable at https://t.me/investigations/341. This is not the first time large sums of USDT have been frozen quickly after suspicious activity. The speed with which Tether intervened this time, within half a minute of detection, shows that monitoring tools are becoming increasingly sharp. Whether there are any suspects yet is not known at this time.