The US has seized approximately $1 billion in Iranian crypto assets, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant announced.
“I think we have seized about $1 billion of their crypto assets“, he said at an economic forum organized in California by the “Ronald Reagan“ Presidential Foundation.
In late April, Besant announced that Washington had frozen $500 million in crypto assets linked to Tehran.
The sum of $1 billion is cumulative as part of a large-scale economic pressure campaign, not a single action. Operation “Economic Fury“ is the codename for the offensive launched by President Donald Trump to disrupt Tehran’s financial channels to circumvent sanctions.
The single biggest success of the campaign came in late April 2026, when Tether froze $344 million in stablecoins (USDT) on the Tron network at the request of the United States. These addresses were directly linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The Treasury Department is working closely with blockchain analytics firms and digital asset issuers to identify and “directly seize control of the wallets” of Iranian networks. According to Besent, some of their owners even realize at the moment of transactions that their access has been cut off.
Due to the oil and banking blockade imposed by the US, the Iranian regime relied on digital assets to conceal transactions from oil sales and financing military operations. According to data from the Treasury Department, Tehran transferred between $400 and $500 million per month through crypto channels before the tightening of US cyber sanctions.