#比特币与黄金战争 【33 Billion USD Freeze Wave: How Big Is the Regulatory Gap Between the Two Major Stablecoins?】

Recently, I came across some interesting data — Tether and Circle have completely different attitudes toward handling frozen assets, with a gap that’s quite surprising.

$BTC $ETH $ZEC

📊 The specific numbers are as follows:

From 2023 to 2025, Tether has frozen a total of 3.3 billion USD worth of on-chain assets, involving 7,268 addresses. Over 2,800 of these freezes were carried out at the request of U.S. law enforcement agencies. More hardcore is that Tether also implemented the entire process of "freeze → destroy → reissue," directly recovering funds from illegal flows. The Tron network has become a key area, with over 53% of frozen assets occurring there.

Circle’s approach is much more moderate: they only act upon court orders or clear instructions from regulatory authorities. So far, they have frozen 372 addresses and choose to keep the tokens unchanged, never involving destruction or reissuance.

This is not just a difference in numbers — it reflects two stablecoin issuers’ different understandings of the "boundaries of authority." Tether is more inclined to cooperate proactively with law enforcement, while Circle strictly follows legal procedures.

Honestly, there’s no absolute answer to this issue: freezing authority can indeed combat scams and illegal fund flows, but it also shakes the original intention of "decentralization." How much freezing power should stablecoins have? This is probably a question the entire industry is contemplating.

What’s your opinion?