- Central Bank of Iran acquired about $507 million in USDt.
- The purchases likely aimed to support the falling rial and to settle international trade.
- Accumulation began during a period of extreme currency volatility as the rial lost half its value in eight months.
- Nobitex handled the funds until a June 2025 security breach; funds were later routed via cross-chain services from Tron to Ethereum.
- Tether froze roughly $37 million linked to the bank, and the country’s crypto ecosystem exceeded $7.8 billion in 2025.
Central Bank of Iran acquired more than $507 million in USDt, the US dollar–pegged stablecoin issued by Tether, amid growing protests and rising crypto use in 2025, according to a report by Elliptic. Officials appear to have used the stablecoins to prop up the rial and to facilitate some international settlements.
Elliptic said the bank’s accumulation started during extreme economic volatility, when the rial halved in value over eight months. “The CBI’s accumulation of USDT began in earnest during a period of extreme economic volatility,” the firm wrote, suggesting the central bank bought rials with USDt on local exchanges to stabilize the currency.
The crypto exchange Nobitex, one of the country’s largest, processed the central bank’s USDt holdings until a security breach in June 2025. After the breach, the central bank moved funds through a cross-chain bridge to shift assets from TRON to Ethereum, then exchanged them for other assets and transferred holdings across additional blockchains and platforms.
Tether retains the capability to freeze tokens and did so in June 2025 when several wallets linked to the bank were blacklisted, resulting in about $37 million in USDt being frozen, Elliptic’s post noted. Analysts also recorded a surge in digital-asset activity inside the country; Chainalysis reported that Iran’s crypto ecosystem grew to more than $7.8 billion in 2025 as residents turned to assets such as Bitcoin amid economic pressure.
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