Freezes and Clawback
The controls an issuer can apply to assets it has issued on the XRP Ledger, and why they don't apply to XRP itself.
These controls apply only to issued currencies, never to XRP
A frequent point of confusion: the features on this page let an issuer of a trust-line-based asset exercise certain controls over that specific asset. They have no bearing on XRP itself — no one, including Ripple, can freeze or claw back XRP, since XRP has no issuer in this sense.
Trust line freeze
An issuer can freeze a specific trust line, preventing the holder from sending that particular issued balance to anyone else (while typically still allowing the holder to send it back to the issuer). This is commonly used by regulated issuers — for example, a stablecoin issuer that needs to comply with a legal order to freeze a specific account's holdings, similar to how a regulated bank can freeze a customer's account under applicable law.
Global freeze
An issuer can also apply a global freeze, halting all trading and transfers of its issued currency across every holder simultaneously — a more drastic, network-wide version of the same control, typically reserved for emergency situations (such as responding to a critical bug or major compliance issue) rather than routine use.
No-freeze
Alternatively, an issuer can permanently renounce its ability to freeze a currency at all, by setting a no-freeze flag on its issuing account — a credible, on-chain commitment that holders of that asset can independently verify, useful for issuers who want to assure users their tokens can never be frozen, in exchange for giving up that capability themselves.
Clawback
Clawback is a more recent, separate feature (added via its own amendment) that lets an issuer forcibly reclaim (claw back) previously issued tokens from a holder's account, without that holder's cooperation. This is primarily aimed at regulated stablecoin issuers who may have a legal obligation to reverse a specific fraudulent or erroneous transaction, or to comply with a court order — a capability many traditional regulated financial products already have in some form, now made available natively for XRPL-issued assets. Like no-freeze, an issuer must explicitly opt in to enabling clawback on its issuing account; it is not a default capability, and cannot be added retroactively to already-issued tokens that were issued without it enabled.
Why these features exist
Real-world regulated financial instruments — bank deposits, registered securities, many stablecoins — commonly need to support freezes and reversals to comply with sanctions law, court orders, and anti-fraud requirements. By making these controls native, optional, protocol-level features, the XRPL lets a compliant issuer build a regulated asset without needing custom, unaudited smart-contract logic to implement the same functionality — directly relevant to the tokenized real-world assets use case.
What holders should check
Before holding a significant balance of any issued currency, it's worth checking whether the issuer has enabled freeze and/or clawback capability on that asset — information that's publicly visible on-ledger via a block explorer, letting you make an informed decision about the issuer-control tradeoffs you're accepting.