BroadChain News, April 26, 01:46, according to BeInCrypto, Tether assisted US authorities in freezing approximately $344 million worth of USDT in two addresses on April 24. US officials subsequently confirmed that these funds were linked to Iran, involving transactions routed through Iranian exchanges and wallets of the Central Bank of Iran. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that this move aims to cut off financial channels used by Iran amid stalled nuclear negotiations.
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis reports that Iran's crypto asset scale reached $7.8 billion in 2025, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) holding about half of it. The two frozen Tether wallets exhibited behavior similar to known IRGC addresses during their active periods, with individual transfers often reaching tens of millions of dollars. The Central Bank of Iran is adopting more covert methods to conceal cross-border digital asset activities, aiming to stabilize the rial and maintain trade under sanctions.
Daniel Tannebaum, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, believes that while the freezing action is significant, Iran has adapted to economic pressure for decades, and a more critical bottleneck lies in third-country actors such as China. Tether currently collaborates with over 340 law enforcement agencies across 65 countries and has assisted in freezing over $4.4 billion in assets. Whether this action can truly change Iran's fund routing methods remains a focus for regulators and exchanges.