Trace results
Paste receiving addresses and start the trace; each address’s direct payers and the verdicts will be listed here.
USDT source trace
Where did the USDT you received come from?
Paste TRC20 receiving addresses. The tool walks up the payers, and the payers of those payers, and checks every address against Tether’s freeze blacklist. It all runs in your browser against public TRON nodes — nothing passes through our servers and nothing is collected.
How to read the result
- The blacklist only covers addresses Tether itself has frozen. Accounts frozen at an exchange on a law-enforcement request are not necessarily on it, so a clean result is not a guarantee; a hit almost certainly means trouble.
- Hubs: an address with 1,000+ transfers in and out is usually an exchange, OTC desk, payment processor or payout wallet, and the trace stops there. Every path above it touches everyone, so a hit would mean nothing.
- Prices are not visible. “Discounted USDT” is negotiated off-chain; the chain only shows transfers, so it can only be inferred from source traits (new wallets, blacklisted upstream).
- Time order matters: upstream money only counts if it reached the payer before they paid you. Funds they received afterwards cannot be in your payment, so they never count as a hit.
- USDT-TRC20 only. ERC20, BEP20 and TRX are out of scope.
- Results are for reference only and are not legal or financial advice.
Why trace upstream
According to media reports, Binance co-founder Yi He warned on 8 November 2026 that discounted USDT bought below market, funds collected in Cambodia or Myanmar, and money moved on behalf of others may be frozen by law enforcement when deposited to an exchange.
Open source
This tool is open source; the code and docs are on GitHub. Every lookup goes from your browser straight to TronGrid; the API key stays in this tab’s memory and is gone when you close it.
How does the USDT source trace work?
The tool reads public transfer records on the TRON chain. For each receiving address you paste, it lists every inbound USDT-TRC20 transfer and its payer (all payers at hop 1), then looks up the payers of those payers. From hop 2 it follows only the largest few sources of each address — you choose how many, 3 by default — up to 4 hops.
Every address on the way is checked by calling the USDT contract’s isBlackListed function, which tells whether Tether has frozen it. The tool also reads each wallet’s creation date and flags wallets less than 30 days old at their first payment. Lookups go from your browser straight to the public TronGrid API, never through RedClaw’s servers.
Why does the trace stop at exchanges?
An address with 1,000 or more USDT transfers in and out is usually an exchange, OTC desk, payment processor or payout wallet. The tool treats it as a hub and stops there: almost everyone is upstream of a hub, so a blacklist hit above it says nothing about your payment and only adds noise.
“Exchange / OTC hub” in the results is therefore a neutral marker that shows where a branch ends, not a risk signal.
Does a clean result mean the funds are safe?
No. The Tether blacklist only lists addresses Tether itself has frozen. Accounts frozen at an exchange on a law-enforcement request, and exchanges’ internal risk lists, are not necessarily on it. A hit, on the other hand, almost certainly means trouble — stop and check before depositing.
Prices are not visible on-chain either: “discounted USDT” is negotiated off-chain and can only be inferred from traits such as new wallets or blacklisted addresses upstream. Results are for reference only and are not legal or financial advice.
FAQ
- Do I need to connect a wallet to use the USDT source trace?
- No. It never asks you to connect a wallet, sign, approve or enter a seed phrase; it only reads public chain data. Any site asking you to connect your wallet to check whether your USDT is clean is a drainer scam.
- Should I enter a TronGrid API key, and is it stored?
- It works without one, but the free tier rate-limits quickly; the tool waits and retries automatically. A key makes lookups faster. It stays in this tab’s memory only, is never saved, and is sent to TronGrid alone.
- Can it trace ERC20 or BEP20 USDT?
- No. It traces USDT-TRC20 on TRON only; ERC20, BEP20 and TRX transfers are out of scope.
- Can I export the results?
- Yes. When the trace finishes, use Download CSV: one row per traced address with its hop, blacklist status, hub flag, creation date and full path.