Tether blacklists $31.4M USDT following FTX's alleged hack, Musk reacts

By blacklisting the alleged stolen USDT token, Tether disarmed hackers from siphoning the assets to another account or exchanging them for other cryptocurrencies.
Arijit Sarkar
Posted by Arijit Sarkar November 12, 2022 2 Mins Read
By blacklisting the alleged stolen USDT token, Tether disarmed hackers from siphoning the assets to another account or exchanging them for other cryptocurrencies.

On the night of Nov. 11, several wallet addresses linked to FTX were found transferring millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies without an official notice — sparking speculations ranging from the commencement of FTX’s bankruptcy proceedings to the involvement of hackers. Within hours, FTX confirmed on Telegram that the fund transfers were part of an ongoing hack.

FTX Telegram admin confirms being hacked. Source: Telegram

Following FTX’s confirmation on Telegram about the hack, as shown above, Tether proactively blacklisted $31.4 million worth of USDT tokens linked to the transactions. As pointed out by blockchain investigator ZachXBT, the blacklisted USDT tokens were made up of $3.9 million USDT on Avalanche (AVAX) and $27.5 million USDT on Solana (SOL).

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who recently purchased Twitter in hopes of unleashing the platform’s full potential, acknowledged Twitter’s contribution in tracking down the FTX developments in real time.

Elon Musk takes a dig at FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Source: Twitter

By blacklisting the alleged stolen USDT token, Tether disarmed hackers from siphoning the assets to another account or exchanging them for other cryptocurrencies. As part of the remediation, Tether can burn the blacklisted USDT and reissue equal amounts of the asset to the original owner.

However, the hacker also stole numerous other crypto assets, including Ethereum (ETH) Chainlink (LINK) and USDP, which is yet to see intervention from respective ecosystems.

Related: FTX-Binance standoff highlights the need for clear rules — Sen. Lummis

Over the past few days, major crypto exchanges, including Binance, OKX, Kucoin and Crypto.com, committed to sharing their proof of reserve to regain investor confidence.

Taking the lead in this drive, Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino shared 135 cold and hot wallet addresses revealing Bitfinex’s proof of reserves.

While the move was well-received by investors, few members of the community pointed out the lack of Bitfinex's liability figures, which makes the data incomplete for review.

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