Coinworld News reported that on March 14, according to Whale Alert monitoring, 11,960,680 USDT held by an address on the Tron chain were just frozen by issuer Tether. Tether implements the USDT freezing mechanism through the blacklist function built into its smart contract. After administrators call the addBlackList function to add a specific address to the blacklist, all transfers into and out of that address's USDT become invalid. The balance remains visible but permanently locked, typically triggered by money laundering, fraud, or sanctions-related enforcement requirements. Tether has cumulatively frozen over $4.2 billion in USDT over the past few years, with most of the freezes occurring after 2023.