Pause and freeze
Stop asset-wide transfers or hold a specified amount at one address so it cannot move.
Pause and freeze are the two movement controls on an issued asset, and they act at different scopes on purpose. Pause is asset-wide: it stops every standard transfer, mint, burn, and redeem on the token at once, for every holder, until someone unpauses it. A partial freeze is address-scoped: it holds back a stated amount at one wallet so those units cannot move, while transfers continue normally everywhere else. Choose the scope of the intervention: pause when the concern is with the asset itself, freeze when the concern is with one holder's position and nobody else's should be touched.
A third control lives in the same menu and is easy to reach for by mistake: forced transfer, covered on the Transfers page. Freeze holds tokens in place at the holder's own address; forced transfer moves tokens out of that address to somewhere else without the holder's consent, and the Console states plainly that step cannot be undone. A freeze does not block a forced transfer. If the free balance is too small, the operation unfreezes enough units to cover the shortfall, then moves the tokens. The remaining frozen balance stays frozen. Use freeze to hold a balance in place, and use forced transfer only when tokens need to move regardless of who holds them or what is frozen.
Pause and freeze change nothing for a holder's recorded balance; neither confiscates anything, since both controls only change what the contract will let someone do with tokens that are already there. The pause check runs when a transfer executes on-chain, not when it is submitted. A transfer a holder already submitted, but that has not yet been mined when the pause lands, will revert rather than complete; it does not queue or wait for the unpause. A partial freeze does not stop the frozen address from receiving new tokens, only from moving the frozen portion out. Every pause, unpause, freeze, and unfreeze lands as its own entry in the asset's Events, with the transaction hash, so counterparties and auditors can see exactly when a control changed and who changed it.
Steps
Select the control
Open "All assets", select the asset, and open "Manage Asset". Choose "Pause token" or "Unpause token" for the whole asset; the menu shows whichever one the current state allows. Choose "Freeze partial balance" or "Unfreeze partial balance" for a specified amount at one address.
Pick pause when the concern applies to the asset itself, for example a suspected issue with the contract or a control that has to apply to every holder at once. Pick a partial freeze when the concern is about one holder's specific tokens and the rest of the market should keep trading normally; freezing does not touch any other address's balance or ability to transfer. Because a pause also disables the freeze controls, do not pause an asset expecting to still be able to freeze a specific address afterward. If the approved intervention requires both, account for the Console's freeze restriction while paused. Do not delay an urgent pause or unpause a halted asset solely to reach the freeze form; an authorized contract-level freeze remains possible.
Screen equivalent: the "Manage Asset" menu lists the whole-asset and balance-level controls, and states the missing role on any control the signed-in account cannot use.
Review the scope
For a partial freeze or unfreeze, enter the target address and amount. The amount you can freeze is capped at that address's available balance, meaning its total balance minus whatever is already frozen there; the contract rejects a freeze that asks for more than that remainder rather than freezing what it can. An unfreeze is capped the other way: you cannot unfreeze more than is currently frozen at that address, but you can unfreeze any amount up to that total in one request; releasing the whole frozen balance is not required. To freeze the whole current position, add the available amount to the amount already frozen. Releasing an existing freeze does not increase the holder's total balance.
For a pause or unpause, there is no address or amount to enter. Read the confirmation dialog's state comparison, which shows the asset's current state next to the state your change will produce, both drawn from what the Console already knew when the dialog opened. Confirm it matches what you intend before you continue. This checks your own intent against what you are about to do, not what another operator might be doing at the same moment: the comparison cannot see a change a colleague makes after the dialog opens. If that happens, submitting reports the collision rather than the dialog catching it beforehand; see Troubleshooting.
Submit the control change
Confirm the transaction, which needs wallet verification the same as other Console admin changes. The contract only changes the pause or freeze state; it does not move the holder's tokens, and a forced transfer is the only one of these controls that moves anything.
Every one of these four controls is fully reversible. Reversing one requires the opposite transaction, its authorization, and any gas fee. Unpausing an asset the moment after pausing it is fully valid. Unfreezing the exact amount you froze restores it to available balance immediately, with no cooldown, waiting period, or separate approval step enforced by the contract. That is what sets pause and freeze apart from forced transfer, which the Console states cannot be undone at all.
Freeze and forced transfer both require the custodian role. A freeze restricts a balance until it is unfrozen. A forced transfer moves that balance and has no undo control.
Troubleshooting
The control is missing
Freeze and unfreeze only appear on an asset that carries the custodian capability; forced transfer needs the same capability. An asset issued without it never offers these controls, and there is no override from this page. Confirm the asset's configured capabilities before you assume the control has moved somewhere else.
The control cannot be selected
Two different causes disable a control, and the Console names which one applies, favouring the role message when both are true at once. If your account lacks the needed role, the message states directly whether it is the emergency role (for pause or unpause) or the custodian role (for freeze, unfreeze, or forced transfer) that is missing on this asset specifically. That message wins even while the asset is also paused. Ask an administrator to grant it, since roles are asset-scoped and a role on one asset does not carry to another. If your account holds the role and the message instead reads "The token is paused. Please unpause it to perform this action.", confirm whether ending the pause is authorized. Keep the asset paused when the intervention still requires it; use an approved contract-level path for a freeze or unfreeze that must happen while paused.
Two operators change pause state at once
Pausing and unpausing raise the same contract error, DALP-1109, whether a pause finds the asset already paused or an unpause finds it already active. This can happen with nobody at fault: the confirmation dialog's state comparison rendered before a colleague's pause or unpause reached the chain, so it could not show you the collision in advance. The Console recognises this specific case and reports it as "{{name}} is already {{state}}. Nothing was changed.", naming the asset and the state it is already in. Nothing changed, so there is nothing to undo; refresh the asset workspace and confirm the status badge already shows what you wanted.
A partial freeze fails
The requested amount exceeds the address's available balance, its total balance minus whatever is already frozen there. Check the "Holders" tab for the address's current available amount before you retry, and freeze that amount or less. To freeze the whole current balance, freeze its available portion; the existing frozen portion already remains blocked.
An unfreeze fails
The requested amount exceeds what is currently frozen at that address. Open "Holders" and read the address's frozen amount before you retry; you can only unfreeze up to that figure, never more, even if the total balance is larger.
Frequently asked questions
Can I pause transfers for just one holder instead of the whole asset?
No. Pause always applies to the whole asset, for every holder, at once, because it is an asset-wide switch rather than a per-address one. Reach for a partial freeze on the one holder instead. If that holder then tries to move more than the freeze left free, the wallet does not report freeze at all. It gets an ordinary balance-insufficient refusal, DALP-1101, whose reported balance already has the frozen amount subtracted out, so it reads lower than what the holder actually holds.
Can I freeze balances at more than one address in a single request?
No. Each freeze or unfreeze submission targets one address and one amount. To hold back tokens at more than one address, submit a separate freeze for each address; the Console has no bulk or multi-address freeze control. Freezing multiple addresses for one intervention takes one submission, and one wallet verification, per address.
Who can unfreeze tokens that another administrator froze?
Anyone holding the custodian role on that asset, not just the account that froze it originally. The role is scoped to the asset, not to the operator who acted first, so a second custodian-role holder can review and reverse a colleague's freeze without needing the first operator's wallet or involvement. Check "Holders" for the current frozen amount before you unfreeze, since another operator may have already changed it.
Does a partial freeze stop a burn or redemption?
Not evenly. A redemption the holder submits, including a redemption at maturity, reverts like an ordinary transfer if it needs more than the free balance: the frozen amount stays exactly as it was, and the redemption fails rather than reaching into it. The underlying administrative burn behaves like a forced transfer: short on free balance, it draws down enough of the frozen amount to cover the difference and completes anyway, leaving less frozen than before. The Console's burn form applies a stricter available-balance limit, but the contract can consume frozen units through another authorized route. A partial freeze therefore does not protect a balance against every administrative burn.