Did you know? The two giants of USD stablecoins have almost diametrically opposed attitudes toward asset freezing.

According to the latest on-chain data, from 2023 to 2025, Tether has frozen a total of $3.3 billion in assets, while Circle has only frozen $109 million — a gap of 30 times.

**The story behind the data is even more outrageous:**

Tether has been very aggressive. They have blacklisted a total of 7,268 addresses, over 2,800 of which were part of cooperative investigations at the request of U.S. law enforcement agencies. Even more intense, Tether has employed a "freeze-destroy-reissue" combo, directly recovering funds from scammers. Notably, over 53% of the frozen USDT occurred on the Tron chain, which has become a key focus of regulatory attention.

In contrast, Circle takes a completely different approach. They only act upon receiving formal court or regulatory instructions, freezing a total of 372 addresses. Moreover, Circle follows a principle — once frozen, tokens are never reissued, demonstrating a very conservative and cautious style.

**Essentially, this is a battle over the boundaries of authority.**

On one side is the "active" camp represented by Tether, which actively cooperates with law enforcement and responds quickly; on the other side is the "conservative" camp like Circle, which strictly follows procedures and maintains restraint. Behind this actually reflects a bigger question: in the decentralized blockchain world, how much freezing authority should stablecoin platforms have? Is it a necessary measure to prevent scams and protect users, or a deviation from the essence of blockchain?

There is no simple answer to this question. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.