Tether announced today that it has frozen more than $344 million in USDT across two wallet addresses on the Tron blockchain after U.S. authorities identified the addresses as connected to unlawful conduct. The freeze was executed in coordination with OFAC (the Office of Foreign Assets Control) and multiple U.S. law enforcement agencies. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company "acts immediately and decisively" when links to sanctioned entities or criminal networks are identified.With all the theft, evil, and scams that happen in the bitcoin space when I read headlines like this my emotions automatically think
WTF STABLECOIN BAD! Bitcoin freedom Yeah!!WTF STABLECOIN BAD! Bitcoin freedom Yeah!!
Yet we have zero clue the type of of individuals and countries that are actually on the OFAC list. If tether turned off the money of pedos, robbers, scammer, and other scum that so be it! Are are we expecting bitcoin to be the perfect cover for evil?
I call this lazy journalism because it causes the reader to act on emotion and not critical thought. Never once has TFTC done an expose on the OFAC list or commend the freezing of assets in an attempt to stop crime.
I know having your money turned off sucks but so does crime and getting scammed. It is possibly law abiding citizens may one day be added to the OFAC list but I think bitcoin journalism has to get better than this.
I think that 2 things are non-mutually-exclusive bad here:
This is why my assets aren't issued and controlled by some corporation.
For context on my bias:
#790281
Hmm. So I've worked some investigations into scam rings. Without chainalysis or any of the other spy products. Its especially easy on Tron because you can just map money flow all the way to an exchange.
So from this perspective, the shitcoins are a boon and its where most of the scammers operate. Especially the ones targeting the most vulnerable among us, ie the people that could really use a break.
I'm all for catching the predators. But, once you realize they are sitting on the other side of the world nowadays and just pyramid recruit locally, you know that the next scam is just a week out. So we have to do more and we have to do better, imho. But having said that, maybe its better to do nothing and just let everyone be scammed. Then they learn.
It's not that turning off the money of actual criminals is bad, it's that money that can be turned off at a whim is bad.
Which I understand but what is the alternative to stoping the crime? I am assuming law enforcement must have some sort of evidence before going to tether and telling them to turn off the tokens.
Prevent the crime from happening to begin with, or find the criminals and arrest them.
By the way, if a thief stole some bitcoin, I wouldn't be against the forcible confiscation of their stolen coins so that they can be returned to the rightful owner. But that doesn't mean I support a centralized system where someone can just do that by the flip of a switch.
And how often are forcibly-confiscated coins returned to their rightful owners? Seems me they're most often kept by law enforcement.
This is true normally after Justice is served the asset should be returned.
This post isn’t to support tether but to criticize how lazy bitcoin journalism can be.
This is the ideal situation but it’s unrealistic. Even with all the KYC now scams are afoot. Plus bitcoin projects lead users to the kingdom of scams by having them download and use telegram to get tech support!!
but what's the alternative? any kind of backdoor can be abused and besides doesn't really make sense in a decentralized system
I am not sure. I don’t see much discussion about this. Just the constant complaining about KYC and chain analysis and the solution to stopping crimes is explained away as “good ol fashioned police work” but tools to solve crimes evolve with technology which is expected.
That's a big assumption!
Indeed it is. Law enforcement also commits crimes. Power needs to be checked. No single entity should control the money. Period.
The issue isn't that crime is being stopped, it's that one company has a
god modebutton for your money. That’s the exact opposite of why most people got into cryptoI am not advocating for tether here. I am criticizing the lazy reporting behind breaking the news to bitcoiners.
So the real question isn’t “are freezes good or bad?” It’s: who decides, and what are the limits?
Your criticism of lazy journalism is fair. A lot of coverage leans on outrage instead of explaining that spectrum—from censorship resistance to compliance—and the costs on both ends.
Just the whole space ignores how to bring justice to criminals when peoples’ property and liberties are violated in this space.
All we get is the same NO KYC and MAH FREEDOM but no critical analysis of why these tethers were frozen what was the suspected crime and was it just or unlawful.
That is why I call it lazy journalism.