Stablecoin Freezes Vulnerable to Front-Running Attacks

TuongVy Le, General Counsel at DeFi vault platform Veda, is sounding the alarm about a critical issue in stablecoin freezes. When issuers like Tether freeze illicit funds, they often have to wait in line behind other transactions, including those they're trying to stop.

This problem isn't theoretical; it's measurable. In 2025, Tether's multisig freeze mechanism on the Tron network averaged a 44-minute delay. During this window, over $78 million in illicit transfers were executed before freezes could be applied.

An arXiv paper published in March 2026 explains that blacklist calls, which add an address to a stablecoin's frozen list, operate as standard blockchain transactions and are vulnerable to front-running and miner-extractable value (MEV) attacks.