The recovery technique offered by Tether for its subscribers is not a free service according to the statement on the website.
Since its launch in 2014, stablecoin issuer Tether has assisted customers in recovering $87 million in USDT that had been transmitted to incorrect addresses, according to its CTO Paolo Ardoino.
Tether’s retrieval process
According to Ardoino, Tether was able to retrieve over $1.5 million in USDT on behalf of its users as recently as earlier this week, for example. Tether, as previously reported by The Block, has a recovery mechanism in place that allows it to blacklist addresses on the Ethereum and Tron blockchains, freeze money in those addresses, and issue fresh USDT tokens to impacted users if the situation warrants it.
As Ardoino said, “Some users make mistakes while sending tokens to DeFi [decentralized finance] projects or trading platforms, resulting in tokens being transmitted to smart contracts or addresses that do not have the capability to retrieve the monies.”
“It is necessary for Tether to ban the address in order for a token to be reclaimed as part of the recovery procedure. This revokes all USDT owned by that address and reissues an equivalent amount of USDT to an escrow address, allowing money to be processed and returned to their rightful owners as quickly as possible. Tether requires proof of ownership, among other details, before it can begin the recovery process in order to be safe.”
Tether’s recovery fee
The recovery technique offered by Tether is not a free service. According to its website, the stablecoin issuer charges a fee of $1,000 or up to ten percent of the money recovered, whichever is larger. That implies it has earned a total of $8.7 million in fees to date. Tether allows recovery claims for sums in excess of $1,000 in total value.
Beyond its recovery method, Tether additionally blacklists IP addresses for the purpose of complying with regulatory requirements. For example, earlier this month, Tether blacklisted three Ethereum addresses that were holding more than $160 million in USDT at the time. In a statement at the time, Ardoino stated, “Tether is working with a law enforcement request and has imposed a temporary freeze to allow the investigation to continue.”
Since its inception, Tether has established itself as the market leader. However, the total supply of its rival USD Coin (USDC) on the Ethereum blockchain topped that of tether last week and has continued to rise in the weeks after.
According to Etherscan, the current total supply of USDC on the Ethereum blockchain is more than 42 billion, whilst the current total supply of USDT on the blockchain is approximately 40 billion, respectively. According to The Block’s Data Dashboard, tether continues to be the most valuable cryptocurrency across all blockchains.
