Trump Wants Iran Completely Finished, Launches New 'Attack' Here
The United States government has officially announced new sanctions against cryptocurrency wallet networks linked to Iran, freezing digital assets worth US$344 million (Rp5.93 trillion) this week. Citing an Al Jazeera report on Wednesday (29/04/2026), this step is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up economic pressure on Tehran amid negotiations to end the war that has lasted two months.
Iran’s crypto ecosystem was reportedly worth more than US$7.78 billion (Rp134.22 trillion) last year, growing faster than in 2024 according to data from transaction monitoring firm Chainalysis. In addition to being used by civilians to protect savings from inflation and the rial’s value drop of up to 90% since 2018, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is recorded as dominating around 50% of blockchain network activity in the fourth quarter.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent emphasised via platform X that his side would pursue every movement of money that Tehran attempts to make abroad. The US is committed to targeting all financial channels tied to the Iranian regime to narrow their room to manoeuvre in purchasing weapons or illegally selling oil.
“We will follow the money that Tehran desperately tries to move abroad and target all financial channels linked to that regime,” Bessent stated.
The IRGC’s dominance in this digital ecosystem is achieved through crypto mining operations that use state electricity subsidies, effectively converting energy into sanction-resistant money. Additionally, Iranian authorities have recently reportedly mandated that oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz pay toll fees using cryptocurrency to avoid the international banking system.
Senior intelligence analyst from Chainalysis, Kaitlin Martin, explained that heavily sanctioned jurisdictions naturally shift to crypto as it provides alternative pathways to access global finance. However, Iran’s moves have provoked a strong reaction from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which now classifies the entire Iranian crypto ecosystem as a high-risk area.
“It is very common for heavily sanctioned regions to turn to cryptocurrency because it provides alternative pathways that give access to finance previously restricted by sanctions,” Martin said.
As a result of this high-risk classification, ordinary people in Iran must bear a heavy burden as their access to international business and the global crypto community is almost completely cut off. Many major digital asset exchanges have begun freezing accounts belonging to Iranians, while foreign companies are increasingly avoiding cooperation with entities inside the country.
Concerns over the security of digital assets in Iran have also risen sharply since the start of US-Israeli airstrikes at the end of February. Firouz, a crypto user in Tehran, admitted to immediately transferring all his savings from Nobitex— Iran’s largest digital asset platform—to a personal wallet just before the war began, fearing cyber attacks or state seizures.
“My main thought was that I could potentially lose true ownership of the remaining money in Iranian crypto services that are linked to or monitored by the state if war breaks out, either through state authority actions or as a consequence of cyber attacks,” Firouz said.
The importance of crypto to Iran’s economy is also evident from the Central Bank of Iran’s purchase of more than US$500 million (Rp8.62 trillion) in USDT, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, last year. This move was described by analytics firm Elliptic as a sophisticated strategy to bypass the global banking system, but the US is now striving to catch up by enhancing surveillance and enforcement against unofficial crypto exchanges that facilitate Iran.