A user accidentally sent $1.36 million worth of Tether (USDT) tokens to the USDT smart contract address on Ethereum. It is particularly interesting to note that this user made a remarkable mistake by first performing a test transaction of 100 USDT.
Normally, tokens sent directly to a smart contract address are irrevocably lost, as there is no mechanism in place to handle such transfers. This is because token contracts usually do not have this kind of transfer functionality. However, the USDT token contract has a special “destroyBlackFunds” function. This function allows the contract holder to remove certain USDTs from circulation at specific addresses. This can prevent certain addresses from sending USDT, but these addresses can still receive USDT. Interestingly, even the USDT contract address is blacklisted.
When the bug was noticed, the user shared the incident on Twitter and Tether’s CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that they would take steps to resolve the issue. According to the data, the USDT contract address executed a transaction using the “destroyBlackFunds” function, indicating that Ardoino is taking steps to recover the funds. For the time being, however, there is no record of the lost funds being reprinted by Tether.