Centre, the company that issues the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) has blacklisted an Ethereum address with $100,000 in USDC in response to a law enforcement request. For the first time, the „blacklist (investor’s address)“ function was activated for an address on June 16, 2020.
It is not yet clear why the law enforcement request was made, but the Consortium Centre, founded by Circle and Coinbase, issued a statement confirming the blacklisting:
„Centre can confirm that it blacklisted an address in response to a law enforcement request While we cannot comment on the details of law enforcement requests, Centre complies with binding court orders that have appropriate jurisdiction over the organization“.
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A known thief
Although Circle spokesman Josh Hawkins said he could not give details of the blacklisting, it appears that the address may be involved in other crypt robberies.
In the comments section of a different address, a user claims that the owner of the blacklisted address stole other tokens from him:
„Hello unknown thief, you are in contact with this address of eth 0xEeC84548aAd50A465963bB501e39160c58366692 and you have stolen 10,000 Loopring Coin (750 euros) from my purse. Now I’m giving you the chance to give me back my 10,000 Loopring Coin. You know my eth address. If you don’t, I’ll report you anywhere with your two known addresses.
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They’re all the same.
Last week the USDC broke the record of a $1 billion market cap, becoming the second largest stablecoin after Tether (USDT), and Twitter users compare stablecoins to centralized trust currencies, suggesting that what happens to USDC can happen to any other stablecoin.
Another user stated that Dai (DAI) could solve this centralized control problem, however, he also refuted the fact that DAI is backed by USDC and other centrally controlled digital currencies.
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It’s about censorship
Normally, the funds that are kept in the Bitcoin Circuit blockchain are controlled by the owner of the address, however, in relation to USDC, an address can be blacklisted which restricts you from executing transactions (sending or receiving) through the USDC smart contract. Although technically reversible, the Circle website warns that blacklisted addresses may be „totally and permanently unrecoverable.
This has raised concerns in the community about censorship, and one user complained on Reddit:
„Central government control and censorship is only going to get worse.“
Another user commented on Twitter that the „C“ in USDC „means objectionable“.