U.S. Treasury Secretary Says U.S. Has Seized Approximately $1 Billion in Iranian Crypto Assets
Odaily Odaily Planet Daily News U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that since the outbreak of the conflict in February, the U.S. government has seized a large amount of crypto assets from entities linked to the Iranian military, with a scale of approximately $1 billion. Scott Bessent also noted that the U.S. has directly controlled the relevant wallets, and some holders may not yet be aware that their assets have been seized.
This month, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran was accused of promoting a bitcoin-settled offshore insurance platform called Hormuz Safe, and Iran had also planned to require oil tankers traversing the Strait of Hormuz to pay transit fees in bitcoin. Scott Bessent did not directly link this seizure to the aforementioned arrangements, nor did he specify whether bitcoin was involved.
Separately, there are allegations that actors linked to Iran have used Tether's USDT stablecoin to transfer funds, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is said to have received $1.5 billion in USDT.
