Center, the company that issues the stable USD coin (  USDC  ) 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 "black list (investor address)" function called June 16, 2020.

The reason for the law enforcement request is not yet clear, but the Center Consortium - founded by Circle and Coinbase - issued a statement confirming the blacklisting:

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

A known thief

Although Circle spokesman Josh Hawkins said he couldn't provide details on the blacklist, it looks like the address may be involved in other cryptocurrency thefts.

In the comments section of a different address, a user claims that the owner of the blacklisted address stole other tokens from them:

“Hello unknown thief, you are in contact with this eth address 0xEeC84548aAd50A465963bB501e39160c58366692 and you stole 10,000 Loopring Coin (750 euros) from my wallet. I now give you the chance to return the 10,000 Loopring coin to me. You already know my eth address . If you do not, I will notify you anywhere with your 2 known addresses. "

They are all the same

Last week, USDC   exceeded market capitalization by $ 1 billion, making it the second largest stablecoin behind Tether (  USDT  ), and Twitter users comparing stablecoins to centralized fiat currencies, suggesting that what can happen at USDC can happen at any other stablecoin.

Another user said that Dai (  DAI  ) could solve this centralized control problem, but they were also refuted by the fact that DAI is supported by the USDC and other centrally controlled digital currencies.

It's all about censorship

Normally, funds held on the Ethereum blockchain are controlled by the address owner, however, for USDC , an address can be blacklisted, which prevents them from executing transactions (send or receive) via the USDC smart contract . Although technically reversible, the Circle website warns that blacklisted addresses can be "completely and permanently unrecoverable."

This has raised concerns among the community surrounding censorship with a lamenting user on Reddit:

"Central government control and censorship will only get worse."

Another user   commented   on Twitter that the “C” in USDC “means censable”.