U.S. adds four Iran central bank crypto wallets to sanctions, Tether freezes $131 million of contents

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control expanded its financial blockade against Tehran by adding four digital wallet addresses to its sanctions list. These specific addresses are directly tied to the Central Bank of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Following the official designation, stablecoin issuer Tether blacklisted the addresses on the TRON network, successfully freezing $131 million worth of USDT.

According to on-chain tracking data compiled by Chainalysis, the targeted crypto wallets had collectively received more than $165 million in stablecoins before the freeze was implemented. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the coordinated enforcement action, stating that Washington remains fully committed to aggressively tracking global financial flows and disrupting the Iranian regime's systematic misuse of digital assets to evade traditional banking sanctions.

This latest intervention is part of a broader, ongoing federal campaign known as Operation Economic Fury. It follows a previous enforcement action where authorities froze $344 million in Iran-linked crypto, bringing the total amount of immobilized USDT connected to the central bank to roughly $475 million. The geopolitical clampdown comes amid escalating maritime traffic restrictions and renewed defense sector hostilities between Washington and Tehran.