Tether Freezes $72M USDT After Monero Surge Raises Market Questions

One of the most notable instances of Tether freezes occurred recently, with more than $72 million worth of USDT being frozen because of suspicious transactions linked to the significant price surge seen in Monero. This happened after an investigation revealed massive financial transfers related to sudden purchases of Monero.

Tether Freezes USDT Linked to Suspicious XMR Spike Activity

The latest Tether freeze was made based on information provided by ZachXBT, as he found over $120 million USDT transactions from one Tron wallet to several exchanges in less than an hour. The transaction chain started on June 11, when 120.2 million USDT was sent to one wallet, and the funds were not held but transferred.

Source: ZachXBT’s Telegram Post

According to reports, over $12 million went to KuCoin wallets, while over $8 million was transferred via instant exchanges. However, during this period, over $8 million of the funds were bridged from Tron to the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains via cross-chain protocols, adding to the complexity of tracing them.

After these events, there were some massive orders for Monero (XMR). That happened against a backdrop of very quickly rising prices, because XMR increased in value from approximately $300 to $438 and then dropped to about $358. In just a few hours, XMR had gained more than 46%.

It was the timing that stood out about the transfer of money and purchase orders. This could have led to market manipulation. Though no charges have been made yet, the timing was quite unusual.

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Tether Freezes USDT in Tron Wallet

Consequently, Tether freezes were applied once more due to the blacklist applied by the Tether issuer regarding an address from Tron that had the label of TBzrPE….9Ak9W, freezing around $72 million worth of USDT associated with the transaction. This is one of the monitoring measures employed to freeze the funds.

The recent “Tether Freezes” decision draws attention to the growing concerns about the flow of funds in the cryptocurrency market, particularly for rapid transfers that coincide with significant price changes. No additional information has been made available by Tether, but this freeze has already generated much debate on the issue of manipulation.

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