US Sanctions Iran Central Bank Wallets; Tether Freezes $131 Million in USDT

The US government has added four cryptocurrency wallets tied to Iran’s central bank to its sanctions list. Tether, the issuer of the dollar-backed stablecoin USDT, immediately froze some of the assets held in those wallets.

CoinDesk reported on July 16 that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control recently added four Tron-based wallets identified as belonging to the Central Bank of Iran to its sanctions list. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimated the wallets held more than $165 million in stablecoins.

Tether froze $131 million in USDT held in the sanctioned wallets. Some of the funds had already been moved to other wallets before the freeze.

The action expands existing sanctions rather than imposing new ones. The Central Bank of Iran has been subject to US counterterrorism sanctions since 2019 over support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. The latest step came shortly after a ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran collapsed and airstrikes resumed.

Tether also froze $344 million in USDT in April from wallets linked to Iran’s central bank. Including the latest move, the total frozen across the two cases reached $475 million.

OFAC said the wallets disclosed this time may not represent all wallets tied to Iran’s central bank. Other addresses controlled by the bank could also be treated as sanctions targets, it added.