Centre Freezes Ethereum Address Holding $100K USDC

Published on by Cointele | Published on

Centre, the company that issues the stablecoin USD Coin has blacklisted an Ethereum address holding $100,000 in USDC in response to a law enforcement request.

In the first of its kind, the address had a "Blacklist(address investor)" function called on June 16, 2020.

"Centre can confirm it blacklisted an address in response to a request from law enforcement. While we cannot comment on the specifics of law enforcement requests, Centre complies with binding court orders that have appropriate jurisdiction over the organization."

Although Circle spokesperson Josh Hawkins, said he could not provide any specifics about the blacklisting, it appears the address could be involved in other cryptocurrency theft.

"Hello unknown thief, you are in contact with this eth address 0xEeC84548aAd50A465963bB501e39160c58366692 and you stole 10,000 Loopring Coin from my wallet. I am now giving you a chance to send the 10,000 Loopring Coin back to me. You already know my eth address. If you do not do this, I will report you anywhere with your 2 known addresses."

Last week USDC broke $1 billion market cap, making it the second-largest stablecoin behind Tether, and Twitter users likening stablecoins to centralized fiat currencies, suggesting what can happen to USDC can happen to any other stablecoin.

Another user stated that Dai could fix this issue of centralized control, however they were also rebutted with the fact that DAI is backed by USDC and other centrally controlled digital currencies.

Normally funds held on the Ethereum blockchain are controlled by the address owner in relation to USDC, an address can be blacklisted which restricts them from executing transactions through the USDC smart contract.

Circle's website warns that blacklisted addresses may be "Wholly and permanently unrecoverable."

Another user commented on Twitter saying the "C" in USDC "Stands for censorable."

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