US Treasury Freezes More Than $130 Million in Iran-Linked Crypto Wallets

The US Treasury sanctioned multiple crypto wallets tied to the Central Bank of Iran on Tuesday, freezing more than $130 million in digital assets, most of it Tether’s USDT stablecoin held on the Tron network. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent disclosed the action in a post on X, saying it is part of an effort to deny the Iranian government access to revenue from illicit activity.

“US Treasury is committed to disrupting and degrading Iran’s illicit financial activities, including its abuse of digital assets,” Bessent said in the post. “We will continue to aggressively follow the money and deny the Iranian regime access to the proceeds of its illicit revenue schemes.”

The freeze was carried out through the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, with Tether cooperating to freeze assets in the designated addresses.

Blockchain investigator Specter had flagged the freeze earlier on Tuesday, sharing on-chain data showing four Tron wallets holding about $131 million in USDT had been frozen.

The action appears to be the latest under Operation Economic Fury, the financial-pressure campaign against Iran that Washington launched in March last year. In April, US authorities had Tether lock roughly $344 million of USDT across two wallets, and Bessent said in May that the government had seized around $1 billion in Iranian crypto assets. Treasury previously sanctioned four Iranian crypto exchanges under the same effort.

The most recent action comes as a ceasefire between the US and Iran has collapsed. The U.S. has renewed a naval blockade of Iranian ports and announced fresh strikes, while Iran has launched drone attacks on a US-used air base in Jordan.

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