Iran’s Central Bank (CBI) quietly acquired at least US$507 million worth of Tether’s USDT, a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, as part of efforts to bolster the value of the Iranian rial and facilitate foreign trade amid heavy international sanctions, according to a blockchain analytics report by Elliptic. The purchases, traced to wallets linked to the CBI, were made in 2025 and represent one of the largest known uses of stablecoins by a sovereign institution for currency-management purposes.
Elliptic’s research, based on leaked documents and on-chain analysis, shows the central bank paid for the USDT with Emirati dirhams in April and May 2025, building a significant digital dollar reserve outside the traditional banking system. Analysts say the strategy appears aimed at injecting dollar-linked liquidity into Iran’s economy to counteract rapid depreciation of the rial, which lost roughly half its value against the U.S. dollar over several months. The stablecoins were initially channelled through Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, where they could be converted into rials and used to support domestic currency markets.
After a security breach at Nobitex in June 2025, Elliptic’s findings indicate the CBI shifted its USDT flows into cross-chain bridge services, converting tokens from the TRON network to Ethereum and moving funds through decentralized exchanges and other platforms. This suggests a more complex operational approach to managing the assets while navigating sanctions-related restrictions on traditional banking access.
The use of USDT by the central bank highlights broader issues around stablecoin adoption by state actors. Iran’s reliance on non-banking channels and blockchain technology for currency support and trade settlement reflects the challenges faced by heavily sanctioned economies that struggle to access conventional dollar financing and international payment systems like SWIFT. Critics argue that such strategies may draw increased regulatory scrutiny and raise compliance concerns within the global cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Tether, the issuer of USDT, has previously shown the ability to freeze certain wallets tied to Iranian entities, and some of the CBI-linked addresses were blacklisted in mid-2025, resulting in roughly US$37 million worth of frozen USDT, according to on-chain investigations. This underscores the tension between decentralised asset flows and compliance mechanisms imposed by stablecoin issuers and regulators.
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