Crypto09 October, 20262 min read
Tether Blacklists Four THORChain Tron Vaults, Freezing 1.45 Million USDT Then Unfreezes
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Tether froze four THORChain vaults on Tron, locking about 1.45 million USDT. The freeze interrupted Tron-based swaps; THORChain reported no warning.
Vaults Blacklisted, Swaps Halted
Tether blacklisted four THORChain vault addresses on the Tron network on October 9, 2026, freezing approximately 1.45 million USDT and knocking THORChain’s Tron-based cross-chain swaps and liquidity-provider operations offline almost immediately. THORChain technical co-founder Chad Barraford said the team received no advance communication from Tether before the freeze, and he described the vaults as working one morning and then holding tokens that could no longer move.
THORChain’s vaults held the pooled assets that make its cross-chain swaps possible, so freezing four of them stopped activity cold, according to Crypto Briefing’s explanation of how the protocol routes trades across blockchains. The Defiant reported that the four Tron addresses came off the USDT blacklist at 15:30 UTC with their balances intact, and THORChain restarted Tron trading, deposits and signing after the unfreezing.
Barraford Says No Comms
Chad Barraford accused Tether of blacklisting THORChain vault addresses without explanation and then unfreezing them hours later, and he said the funds were frozen and then unfrozen without explanation. Barraford told Cointelegraph that "We don’t know why this choice was made and have had no comms with USDT before this action and are actively reaching out to have a conversation," before the addresses were unfrozen.
Tether’s TRC-20 contract on Tron includes a function called addBlackList, and it described how calling it on an address prevents that address from sending USDT. The Cryptonomist reported that the blacklist lasted about three hours before all four addresses were released, with their balances intact, and it said the reversal covered all four THORChain addresses after about three hours.
Issuer Risk and Pending Lawsuits
The immediate stakes fall on Tron-side liquidity providers, because their capital sits in pools that are now partly frozen with no announced recovery plan. Conduit Technology filed a lawsuit against Tether alleging that the stablecoin company froze $2.76 million worth of USDt in a wallet tied to an investigation launched by Brazilian authorities in 2024.
Two Thai nationals sued Tether in August for allegedly freezing $42.4 million in USDt after an alleged "informal request" from US Homeland Security Investigations. Crypto Briefing framed the broader issue as issuer risk beyond smart contract risks, and it said the incident exposed a structural weak point where a protocol can refuse to censor at its own layer and still be censored at the asset layer.