The U.S. Department of the Treasury, specifically the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), has frozen $344 million in USDT allegedly linked to Iran.

 

In a Friday post on X, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the crypto seizure. The move, according to Bessent, is part of the U.S. effort to systematically degrade Tehran’s ability to generate, move, and repatriate funds.

 

 

“We will follow the money that Tehran is desperately attempting to move outside of the country and target all financial lifelines tied to the regime,” Bessent wrote.

 

While the announcement from Bessent confirmed the freeze and the imposition of sanctions on the owners of the wallets involved, the technical action of the freeze itself was carried out by stablecoin issuer Tether. The stablecoin issuer had earlier stated that it was supporting OFAC and law enforcement agencies in freezing the $344 million linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Hezbollah militant group.

 

Following the announcement, Tether blacklisted two specific wallet addresses on the Tron blockchain, holding $213 million and $131 million in USDT respectively. This move by the U.S. Department of the Treasury follows a similar action in February, when OFAC sanctioned more than 30 individuals and entities allegedly linked to Iran’s oil shipping network.

 

Tether Expands Blockchain Development Efforts

Tether has consistently pushed forward with innovative blockchain developments. Just this month, it launched tether.wallet, its self custodial wallet that brings Tether’s global financial infrastructure within reach of those who have been left unbanked by the traditional financial system.

 

In an effort to enhance the utility of its stablecoins, Tether last month invested 5.2 million dollars into Ark Labs, supporting the building of Arkade, an infrastructure layer that brings programmable, instant transactions directly to the Bitcoin network. Through the Arkade network being built by Arkade Labs, we might see the introduction of stablecoins, including USDT, into Bitcoin.

 

Tether, for the first time, expanded USAT, its US regulated stablecoin, to the Celo blockchain. Since Celo is an Ethereum Layer 2 network optimized for payments, the expansion of USAT to Celo enabled the integration of USAT into Opera MiniPay and Google Cloud infrastructure.

 

 

 

There was a surge in crypto withdrawals minutes after the U.S. and Israel launched targeted military airstrikes in Tehran, Iran’s capital, last Saturday.

 

In a recent post, London-based blockchain analytics company Elliptic gave a report on the aftermath of the airstrikes in Iran. Elliptic reported a significant increase in crypto withdrawals from Nobitex, Iran's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

 

According to the firm, outgoing transaction volume from Nobitex spiked by over 700% within minutes after the first airstrike hit Tehran on Saturday, with crypto outflows reaching nearly $3 million in a single hour that same day.

 

Image credit: elliptic.co

 

 

Further tracing these funds, Elliptic reported that most of the withdrawals were sent to foreign crypto exchanges, potentially indicating intense capital flight amid uncertainty in the region.

 

"Nobitex allows rials to be converted to cryptoassets, which can then be withdrawn to any external wallet…initial tracing of recent outflows from Nobitex suggests that the funds are being sent to overseas cryptoasset exchanges," Elliptic stated.

 

Although this outflow persisted for most of that day, it fell sharply afterward, an event attributed to the nation's widespread internet outage. Yes, there was a 99% decline in internet connectivity in the country.

 

However, contrary to the "capital flight" situation being reported by Elliptic, blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs seems to hold a different view and cautions against drawing a "capital flight" conclusion.

 

"It appears that the country's crypto ecosystem is not showing signs of acceleration or capital flight, but instead is experiencing a downturn in both transactions and volume as the regime enforces strict internet blackouts," TRM Labs said.

 

 

The State of Crypto in Iran

Despite ongoing unrest, the Iranian cryptocurrency economy appears to be among the largest crypto markets in the world. In 2025, over $10 billion in volume was processed, with Nobitex processing over $5 billion.

 

Iranian crypto exchanges have had to deal with massive crypto outflows, the largest of which occurred on January 9 of this year, after the nationwide demonstrations in the country.

Image credit: elliptic.co

 

To adapt to changing events, cryptocurrency exchanges in the country have had to make operational adjustments and move to risk-containment modes.

 

Wallex, a domestic crypto exchange, suspended crypto withdrawals until further notice, citing infrastructure instability. Nobitex, Aban Tether, and Ramzinex, which are all Iranian-based cryptocurrency exchanges, have also had to suspend deposits and withdrawals.

 

However, despite these challenges, cryptocurrencies and digital assets have come to the rescue of many who have had to cope with the several economic sanctions plaguing the country.