Treasury Secretary unveils 'Economic Fury' to freeze $344M

The U.S. Treasury Department has frozen $344 million in cryptocurrency it says is linked to the Iranian regime, marking the most aggressive digital asset enforcement action of the ongoing conflict. 

TheStreet Roundtable has been tracking Tether's role as a sanctions enforcement tool throughout the war.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the action Thursday night, saying the Office of Foreign Assets Control is sanctioning multiple wallets tied to Tehran as part of Operation Economic Fury, the administration's campaign to systematically cut off Iran's financial lifelines.

"We will follow the money that Tehran is desperately attempting to move outside of the country and target all financial lifelines tied to the regime," Bessent said.

Related: Iran ceasefire wipes out millions in short liquidations

How the freeze happened

Tether confirmed it executed the freeze, blocking the USDT stablecoins across two addresses on the Tron blockchain after receiving information from multiple U.S. authorities about activity tied to unlawful conduct. 

U.S. officials said they observed confirmed transactions with Iranian exchanges and a series of transfers routed through intermediary addresses that interact with wallets associated with the Central Bank of Iran.

Tether's ability to freeze tokens on command — a feature built into the USDT smart contract — has long been a point of contention in the crypto world. Critics argue it undermines the decentralization thesis. In this case, it became a sanctions enforcement tool.

More from TheStreet Roundtable:

• Scammers are demanding Bitcoin from ships trapped in the Strait of Hormuz
• Iran's shocking threat to shut key trade route rattles markets
• Bitcoin, XRP surge amid rising U.S.-Iran tensions

Why crypto is central to the conflict

Iran has turned to cryptocurrency as a financial pressure valve since the war began. 

As TheStreet Roundtable reported earlier this year, Iranian users began pulling funds from exchanges within minutes of the first strikes. The United States and Israel launched an air campaign against Iran in late February, and Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes on Israeli territory, U.S. military bases, and allied Gulf states. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps closed the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping shortly after, choking off the passage that normally carries roughly one-fifth of global oil supply.

With its ports now under a dual blockade — Iran controlling the Strait while the U.S. Navy blocks Iranian ports since April 13 — Tehran's ability to export oil through traditional channels has been severely degraded. As TheStreet Roundtable has previously reported, Iran has been exploring crypto payments for overseas arms deals, and cryptocurrency has become one of the few remaining corridors for moving value out of the country.

The numbers reflect that. 

Chainalysis reported that Iranian wallets received a record $7.8 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025. TRM Labs estimated roughly $10 billion in total Iran-linked crypto activity that same year. The IRGC alone accounted for nearly half of all on-chain holdings in the last quarter of 2025, according to Chainalysis.

A pattern of escalation

Thursday's freeze is not the first crypto-specific action under Economic Fury. In January, OFAC designated two UK-registered crypto exchanges, Zedcex and Zedxion, for processing transactions on behalf of the IRGC — the first time OFAC had ever sanctioned digital asset exchanges specifically for operating in Iran's financial sector.

One of the two exchanges had processed over $94 billion in transactions since its registration in 2022.

Earlier this month, Treasury sanctioned more than two dozen individuals, companies, and vessels tied to Iranian oil smuggling networks and followed that with designations of 14 entities involved in procuring weapons components for Tehran across Iran, Turkey, and the UAE.

Bessent has also warned banks in China, Hong Kong, the UAE, and Oman that facilitating Iranian trade could expose them to secondary sanctions.

Will it move the needle?

Experts are divided. Daniel Tannebaum, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told CNN the freeze is "meaningful" but said that given how heavily sanctioned Iran already is, it may not significantly change Tehran's ability to continue operating in the current conflict.

The broader diplomatic picture remains unstable. Some 400 ships and roughly 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Gulf. 

A temporary ceasefire agreed on April 8 quickly unraveled after Iran began charging tolls of over $1 million per vessel — payable in Bitcoin — and at least one ship was fired upon after following what turned out to be fraudulent transit instructions from scammers posing as Iranian authorities, as TheStreet Roundtable reported this week.

President Trump extended the ceasefire but said Wednesday he had ordered the Navy to "shoot and kill" Iranian boats laying mines in the Strait, while the Pentagon confirmed it is developing contingency plans to target Iran's Hormuz defenses if the ceasefire collapses entirely. A suspected Israeli-linked group also hacked Iran's largest exchange for $48.6 million earlier in the conflict, adding another layer to the digital front of this war.