Tether Freezes Nearly $550M in Iran-Linked USDT in 2026 as US Crackdown Expands

Tether highlighted that blockchain data is becoming a powerful tool for sanctions enforcement, allowing authorities to track funds on-chain, identify specific wallets, and work with issuers to freeze them. Stablecoin giant Tether said on Monday it has helped US authorities freeze nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT so far this year. The company detailed two of those developments. The first, in April, locked more than $344 million in USDT across two TRON addresses. The company acted on information from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and US law enforcement. OFAC added both addresses to its sanctions entry for the Central Bank of Iran on April 24. Treasury Names Crypto a Sanctions Target That entry links the central bank to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force and Hezbollah. OFAC added four more TRON addresses to the same entry on July 14. Tether froze more than $130 million in USDT across those four wallets. Together, the two freezes come to more than $474 million. Tether’s release does not itemize the remaining ones. “Public blockchains provide authorities with a level of visibility into the movement of funds that simply does not exist ...