Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated on Fox Information on Tuesday that the USA froze a crypto pockets linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps price $130 million, a part of a marketing campaign to trace the property of Iran’s supreme chief all over the world.
“We’re monitoring these accounts all around the world,” Bessent stated, in remarks that framed the Treasury work as one prong of an “financial fury” push in opposition to Tehran alongside a blockade. “We froze a crypto pockets linked to the IRGC the opposite day.”
He stated investigators had “discovered the cash man for the Ayatollah” and had been tracing the holdings of Ali Khamenei, together with properties he valued at greater than $100 million. Bessent stated the Treasury hopes to publish the addresses of these properties. He forged the seizures as a switch of worth to the American individuals and a squeeze on the regime.
Iran’s economic system in ‘freefall’
Bessent additionally described a collapse in Iran’s economic system. He stated the rial sits at an all-time low in opposition to the greenback and known as it in “freefall,” with an inflation price he put “upwards of 180%.” His account tracks the rial slide that has pushed some Iranians towards bitcoin.
The feedback lengthen a Treasury marketing campaign that has run via the struggle between Iran, Israel, and the USA. The division has sanctioned Iran’s largest crypto trade and stated the U.S. has seized $1 billion of Iran’s crypto. Blockchain analysts have tied billions in on-chain flows to IRGC-linked wallets, with such wallets receiving greater than $3 billion in 2025, an increase from over $2 billion the yr earlier than.
In a separate transfer, the stablecoin issuer Tether froze $344 million in USDT throughout two blockchain addresses tied to the IRGC, one of many largest single actions within the sequence.
Bitcoin’s design attracts either side of the battle. It settles with out a correspondent financial institution or a reserve-currency issuer, a trait that lets Iran monetize oil entry exterior the greenback system and lets Treasury hint and freeze worth on a public ledger.
The battle has reshaped how crypto figures into the area. Since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran started, bitcoin use contained in the nation has surged as residents moved worth out of the banking system.
Tehran, for its half, reportedly moved to simply accept bitcoin from tankers looking for passage via the Strait of Hormuz, a $1-per-barrel toll that turns its grip on the chokepoint into settlement income. The strait carries a fifth of the world’s oil.
The struggle has repriced bitcoin as properly.
Treasury has not revealed documentation of the $130 million pockets freeze or the property addresses Bessent referenced. The inflation and forex figures got here from his remarks moderately than from Iranian information.
