Tether freezes $700 million in USDT belonging to Iran-linked accounts

USDT issuer Tether has frozen about $700 million in the stablecoin related to accounts funding Iran terrorist activities.

According to a thread on X on 25 June, a user explained that the funds were held in 112 addresses on Tron and Ethereum, with most of the funds being on Tron.

🧵1/Ω
Since #Israel attacked #Iran Tether has frozen 112 addresses on Tron and Ethereum.

– Collectively those wallets received ~$700 million USDT before being frozen
– The top 40 of those wallets are *all* on Justin Sun's Tron blockchain

Iranian exchanges mostly use Tron USDT. pic.twitter.com/hzkYtCVmXq

— @cryptadamist.universeodon.com.ap.brid.gy (@Cryptadamist) June 25, 2025

Curbing terrorist activities

Apparently, the freezing of the funds was aimed at stopping terrorists trying to bypass sanctions. According to the thread, the addresses have been receiving inflow, supported by local exchanges which are complicit.

Nobitex, one of the local Iranian crypto exchanges, was recently hacked for $90 million by hackers who said they were pro Israel.

After the hack, the Iranian government shut down local exchanges to prevent further exploits and since then, Nobitex has been educating its users on how to continue sending funds without being detected.

#Nobitex support even helpfully will inform you that if you would like to transfer your $USDT / Tether funds off of the exchange you should never, ever transfer them directly from Nobitex to the other exchange. Use an intermediary wallet so everyone can pretend they don't know. pic.twitter.com/H7Tf0may4n

— @cryptadamist.universeodon.com.ap.brid.gy (@Cryptadamist) October 14, 2023

As a background, Iran has been at war with Israel over alleged possession of nuclear weapons which Israel says the regime cannot be allowed to own.

Later, the United States joined in and to bomb Iran’s nuclear facility, rendering it harmless according to the U.S. government.

The funds in USDT may be coming from Iran sympathizers who are looking to support the cause of the regime and keep the battle going, but this may not be very successful going forward with Tether’s intervention.

Crypto and terrorism financing

Since the advent of crypto in 2009, terrorism financing has been a major concern, because transactions with digital assets are untraceable.

While the argument is mostly from those who dislike crypto for some other reasons, there is some truth in it as is seen in the case of Iran.

However thanks to the evolving technology, Tether is able to identify and intercept funds being sent for this purpose and in the future, it could become more seamless to hindre the use of crypto for funding terrorist regimes.

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