Every coin depends on someone

When you own a coin, it feels like it is yours alone. For most coins, someone else holds a power over it too. They can freeze it, create more of it, change the rules it runs on, or decide who may cash it in.

That is not a scandal. A coin that promises a dollar cannot exist without a company holding the dollars. But it is a fact about what you own, and it almost never appears next to the price.

Owning a coin tells you what you hold. It does not tell you who else holds power over it.

Nine powers

We read each coin's own terms, contracts and documents, and write down who can do what to it. We call it the PowerMap. There are nine powers we look for:

• Can freeze: block one address, or freeze the coins in it.
• Can pause: stop every transfer of the coin.
• Can create more, or change the supply rule.
• Decides redemption: who may exchange it for what backs it, and on what terms.
• Holds what backs it.
• Can change the rules the coin runs on.
• Orders and approves transactions.
• Pays the return, where a return exists.
• Issues copies on other chains.

Each row names the party, the power, the source and the day we read it.

What we found

• USDC. Circle can block an address and freeze the USDC in it, for a time or for good.
• USDT. Tether can freeze tokens and blacklist the address that holds them. It swaps USDT for dollars only for customers it has verified, from $100,000 at a time and for a fee.
• USDS. It has no freeze function today. Its contract can be upgraded, and a freeze could be added if Sky's governance votes for one.
• Pi. The Pi Core Team decides whose mined Pi can move on chain: only identity-checked users. It is allotted 20 billion of the 100 billion maximum.
• HBAR. Hedera's network nodes are run by members of the Hedera Council.
• Bitcoin. Held through nobody. No company can freeze it, and no one can create more than its rules allow.

Same question, very different answers. USDC and USDT both trade at a dollar, and both can be frozen by the company behind them. Bitcoin cannot be frozen by anyone.

We say where we have not looked

On 10 October 2026, search answered "which coins can be frozen" with four coins that can be, eight that cannot by their own terms, and 1,148 of the 1,160 coins we track with no written row yet.

That last number matters as much as the first two. A blank is not a "no". A coin we have not read is not a coin with no one holding power over it.

Why this matters for the industry

Every project says it is decentralized. The word has stopped meaning anything.

The useful question is narrower, and it can be answered: who can do what to my coin, and where is that written? A coin where nobody holds these powers is rare, and saying so with a source is worth more than the slogan. A coin where a company holds them can still be a good tool, for people who know that is the deal.

Banks, regulators and families already ask this question. The industry should answer it by name.

What this is not

• Not a rating. We name who holds a power. We never score it as good or bad.
• Not complete. Most coins have no written row yet, and we say so.
• Not permanent. Terms change. Every row carries the day it was read.

Sources

All Cryptominium, sources read 2 October 2026 unless dated otherwise: the PowerMap, What a coin can do, and through whom, how these rows are written, and the coin pages for USDC and Tether.

Measurements, not advice. Cryptominium does not recommend buying, selling or holding anything.