The United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Friday, April 24th, that the U.S. government has successfully frozen encrypted currency assets related to Iran worth 344 million dollars. This move aims to systematically weaken Tehran’s financial lifeline and further pressure Iran.
Bessent emphasized in a statement on the social platform X that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Treasury Department is imposing sanctions on multiple encrypted currency wallets related to Iran.
“Under the Economic Fury action, the United States will continue to systematically weaken Tehran’s ability to generate, transfer, and repatriate funds,” he wrote. “We will track Tehran’s efforts to move funds abroad and target all financial lifelines associated with that regime.”
This wave of sanctions comes at a sensitive diplomatic moment. U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are scheduled to travel to Pakistan for a new round of U.S.-Iran negotiations. The White House has stated that Vice President JD Vance is also prepared to travel at any time.
According to CNN, the digital currency company Tether stated that after receiving information from U.S. authorities regarding “illicit activity-related transactions,” the company has assisted the U.S. government in freezing 344 million dollars in assets from two addresses.
A U.S. official revealed to CNN, “Through collaboration with blockchain analysis experts, the U.S. government has observed substantive evidence linking the Iranian regime, including transaction records with Iranian exchanges, and a series of transactions conducted through intermediary addresses associated with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI).”
The official further noted that the Central Bank of Iran is using increasingly sophisticated means to conceal its cross-border transactions through digital assets to stabilize the country’s currency and evade international trade restrictions.
The freezing of these encrypted currency assets is just one aspect of the Trump administration’s economic pressure on Iran. The Treasury Department also announced on Friday that secondary sanctions have been imposed on a large independent refinery based in China and about 40 shipping companies and tankers suspected of transporting Iranian crude oil.
The U.S. continues to block Iranian ports to cut off Tehran’s oil export revenue.
According to data from the blockchain tracking company Chainalysis, Iran’s holdings of encrypted currencies reached 7.8 billion dollars in 2025, with a significant increase compared to the previous year. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) accounts for about half of the holdings.
Chainalysis pointed out that the fund flow pattern exhibited in the frozen encrypted currency wallets is highly consistent with the observed operating patterns of the IRGC.
Daniel Tannebaum, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, believes that although freezing assets is meaningful, given Iran’s long history of sanctions, merely freezing assets may not completely change its behavior in conflicts. He indicated that a more effective approach would be to target “third-country actors” such as China that assist Iran.