The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has classified Iran’s digital asset sector as sanctionable, formalizing years of enforcement against Tehran’s sanctions evasion using Bitcoin (BTC) and the stablecoin Tether (USDT).
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates Iran’s crypto ecosystem topped $7.8 billion last year. Wallets tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s primary military branch, accounted for more than half of on-chain activity in the fourth quarter.
Central Bank’s USDT Reserve Powers Sanctions Evasion
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic reported that Iran’s central bank acquired at least $507 million in USDT, tracing the purchases to leaked 2025 documents. Most of the stablecoin flowed through Nobitex, the country’s largest exchange, before shifting to a cross-chain bridge after a mid-2025 hack.
Researchers describe the setup as a sanction-resistant reserve built outside the traditional dollar system to defend the rial, which has lost close to 90% of its value amid inflation and sanctions.
Washington Escalates Freezes and Sector-Wide Sanctions
Since April, Operation Economic Fury has frozen or sanctioned roughly $1 billion in Iran-linked crypto. Tether blocked $344 million in USDT that month. It froze another $131 million in July after OFAC flagged central bank wallets holding over $165 million in stablecoins.
In June, OFAC also sanctioned the exchanges Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex, along with two of Nobitex’s executives.
On August 24, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s office formally named digital assets a sanctionable sector of Iran’s economy. The designation relies on Executive Order 13902, which lets OFAC sanction entire economic sectors rather than individual entities.
The same package, dubbed Operation Economic Outcast, also sanctioned a Ukrainian broker for routing crypto oil payments. OFAC said he processed over $100 million tied to oil sales for the IRGC’s Quds Force, its foreign paramilitary arm.
“Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.”
— Bessent
Iran has also used crypto to charge tolls for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC relies on subsidized electricity to mine bitcoin, converting power directly into currency that is harder to trace.
As blockchain analytics improve, the standoff between Tehran’s stablecoin workarounds and Washington’s freezing powers looks set to continue.
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