USD-depended altcoin lender Tether (USDT) has declared an official statement about the firm’s decision to refrain from freezing all Tornado Cash addresses permitted by the United States Treasury.
As per recent reports, Tether has released a declaration saying that the crypto lending firm will not be halting smart contract addresses released by the U.S. authority. The statement also gave reasons clarifying their action of refraining from freezing addresses. The declaration is in reference to the cryptocurrency trail mixing instrument Tornado Cash, which has lately been given consent by the Treasury Division’s sub-branch, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The Tornado Cash software was involved in the OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) record for its dealings in the fund laundering of more than $7 billion of stolen digital assets, as claimed by the agency. Freezing smart contract addresses can make the miscreants cautious.
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Expanding its statement to not to freeze these addresses, Tether declared, “So far, OFAC has not indicated that a stablecoin issuer is expected to freeze secondary market addresses that are published on OFAC’s SDN List or that are operated by persons and entities that have been sanctioned by OFAC. Further, no U.S. law enforcement agency or regulator has made such a request despite our near-daily contact with U.S. law enforcement whose requests always provide precise details.”
The declaration has also thrown light on the fact that freezing authorized accounts or smart contract addresses before any sort of clear orders from legal authorities, could interfere with the current investigations, as it might make the wallet holders cautious and obstruct the proof-gathering process.
Tether’s declaration also emphasizes on the decision made by Circle about freezing addresses. “If made without instructions from U.S. authorities, the move by USDC to blacklist Tornado Cash smart contracts was premature and might have jeopardized the work of other regulators and law enforcement agencies around the world.”