This past weekend, on January 11, 2026, Tether conducted a large-scale operation to freeze assets on the TRON network. The Whale Alert service recorded the transactions almost in real-time — the amounts varied from 12 to 50 million on each address.

Official representatives of Tether confirmed that the freezing was carried out in close collaboration with the FBI and the US Department of Justice. The wallet owners are not named, but as BeInCrypto and CCN analysts note, a number of addresses are linked to attempts to circumvent sanctions — allegedly, we are talking about schemes involving Venezuelan oil.

Important context: according to Hash Telegraph, in recent years, about 80% of Venezuela's revenue from oil deals passed through USDT — it was literally a lifeline for the country under sanctions. But after the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, the situation changed.

Tether emphasized that the company "has a long-standing practice of supporting lawful investigations by freezing addresses associated with illicit activities or sanctions violations, in response to legitimate requests." In total, according to information from the issuer's website, the company has blocked over three billion dollars in USDT as part of cooperation with 310 agencies from 62 countries. Tether has voluntarily frozen 3,440 wallets, 2,007 of which were cases of cooperation with American law enforcement. However, the freezing of such a large sum became a high-profile event.

Most experts agree: the issuer's administrative keys have become a full-fledged tool of global oversight. As BeInCrypto rightly points out, there is a clear compromise between centralized control and the principles of decentralization. The market has accepted this compromise.

Analysts at CryptoTimes write directly about the existence of a "kill switch" — the ability to instantly disconnect any wallet from the ecosystem. This contradicts the original idea of decentralization, but as we can see, the market is willing to accept it: Tether's share remains around 60% among all stablecoins.

Direct Threats to Operational Activities

For a professional market participant — be it an exchange, payment gateway, or over-the-counter trader — this incident should be a reason to assess risks. In the perception of many, TRON has long been considered a zone of soft regulation. But the issuer effectively manages a global ledger and can instantly restrict access to any account. Almost the main threat to business now is the risk of wallet "contamination."

After all, the frozen millions remain on the blockchain, turning into ballast. They cannot be exchanged, sent, or used for transactions. If your working capital accidentally touches such assets, by the domino principle, the entire service's operation could very well come to a halt. So at the beginning of 2026, the purity of USDT is becoming almost as important a resource as liquidity.

The TRON network remains attractive due to its speed and low costs. It's just that now this is accompanied by strict compliance with regulatory requirements. For now, the legal purity of each transaction is coming to the fore, not the minimization of fees.

Infrastructure security directly determines whether you will be able to manage your money tomorrow. Transparency is now not a choice, but a condition for the survival of your PnL (Profit and Loss). This suggests the rapid integration of automated risk-checking systems into algorithms and certainly not "one wallet for all operations."

Keeply's Advice: How to Reduce Risks

• Rent energy, don't stake TRX. If you freeze your own funds to obtain energy, you tie up capital. If (knock on wood) a wallet is blocked, your TRX will also be trapped. Renting energy via API allows you to maintain liquidity and not risk the main part of your capital.

• Implement a "Check — Delegate" logic. Configure your software so that it requests energy only after an address passes an AML filter. There's no point in spending resources on a transaction that could lead to sanctions.

• Use high-speed nodes for monitoring. To avoid sending funds to an already blocked address, your system must receive data on wallet statuses in real-time. The update speed of blacklist databases in the API is of significant importance.

• Avoid "gray" USDT. Any discount on the market is often explained by the questionable origin of the coins. Saving on the exchange rate is definitely not worth the risk of a complete loss of assets during the next wave of freezes by Tether.

• Automate transaction checks. Use professional APIs for constant monitoring of your balances. This will allow you to notice suspicious connections in time and isolate questionable assets before the issuer pays attention to them.

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