Tether froze more than $1.5 billion in stolen USDT after the Binance attack. The money was withdrawn on October 29 from the exchange's wallets across several blockchains at once, totaling about $6.3 billion. The company's statement was released on November 2.
Tether issues USDT, the market's largest stablecoin. A stablecoin is a coin whose rate is pegged to the dollar. The issuer can block any address, and then the coins on it can be neither transferred nor exchanged.
For a trader, this is about liquidity. USDT is the main settlement pair on exchanges, and large freezes directly affect the movement of money through the market.
How much was frozen in time?
Paolo Ardoino, head of Tether, says the addresses were blocked within 30 minutes of the attack.
- $1.555 billion - frozen across the Ethereum and Tron networks
- $8.4 million - additionally immobilized on Avalanche
- $7 billion - the total amount of Tether's blocks throughout its history
Why don't the numbers add up?
Blockchain records give a different timeline. A transfer of 1.615 billion USDT on Ethereum went through on October 29 at 23:24 Moscow time.
- The first block - at 00:01 Moscow time. That is 37 minutes after the transfer, and it immobilized about 971.1 million USDT.
- The remaining freezes continued until 00:21 Moscow time. The company did not specify from which point in the incident it counted its 30 minutes.
- Some of the money left earlier. Before the first block, roughly $700 million was withdrawn from the main address in two transactions.
The analytics firm Bitquery estimates the leak at $729 million in USDT. Some of it has already been converted into other cryptocurrencies.
Key point: a freeze blocks movement from an address going forward, but it does not undo transfers that have already gone through.
What about Binance's money?
The exchange covered the losses itself. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) says the company set aside more than $6.34 billion.
- No loans were taken - the reserve covered the hole entirely
- No assets were sold off - there was no pressure on the market from the exchange
How often does Tether block addresses?
Tether cooperates with more than 360 law enforcement agencies in 73 countries.
- As of October 31. The company helped US authorities freeze about 1.6 billion USDT across more than 3,590 wallets.
- Throughout its history. The total volume of blocks has exceeded $7 billion.
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