Overview
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday that U.S. authorities have located about $1 billion in crypto tied to Iran and will probably seize it this week.
- Bessent did not identify which coins, wallets, exchanges, or legal tools will be used, leaving the timing and mechanics of any transfer into U.S. control unconfirmed.
- U.S. actions this year have relied on freezing custodial holdings and working with firms such as Tether, which reported roughly $550 million in USDT freezes in 2026.
- Enforcement faces clear technical limits because on-chain bitcoin cannot be frozen unless it sits on a centralized exchange, so U.S. efforts depend on custodial addresses, exchange cooperation, forfeiture warrants, or stablecoin blacklisting.
- The announcement builds on wider steps by Washington, including recent sanctions on 17 vessels and multiple Iranian exchanges, and follows analytics firms’ estimates that Iran’s crypto flows numbered in the billions in 2025.