Treasury Just Grabbed $1 Billion in Iranian Crypto Wallets

The United States has seized about $1 billion in Iranian cryptocurrency, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday at the 2026 Reagan National Economic Forum.

That figure is nearly double the government’s earlier public estimate of close to $500 million.

The seizure falls under Operation Economic Fury, the President Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Iran’s overseas revenue, banking networks, and digital-asset infrastructure.

Bessent’s description of how it happened was blunt. The U.S. did not negotiate access to these funds.

It took the wallets.

Live: Secretary Bessent delivers remarks at the Reagan National Economic Forum. https://t.co/k0OZERqJ1T

— Treasury Department (@USTreasury) May 29, 2026

The Block reported the new $1 billion figure after Bessent spoke with Fox News’ Larry Kudlow.

His phrasing is the part crypto people should sit with. These were not frozen bank accounts.

They were on-chain assets that the U.S. moved against directly.

Here is how The Block reported the exchange:

The United States has seized approximately $1 billion in Iran’s cryptocurrency assets, nearly double the government’s previous estimate.

Speaking on Friday at the 2026 Reagan National Economic Forum, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. believes Iran had been stealing about $400 to $500 million a month through sanctions evasion. “This is money that’s been stolen from the Iranian people,” Bessent said.

“I believe that we have seized about a billion dollars of their crypto,” Bessent told Fox News’ Larry Kudlow. “Just outright grabbed the wallets.

Some of them may be typing in right now and might not realize that their wallet has been grabbed.”

On April 29, Bessent said the U.S. had seized “nearly $500 million” in Iranian crypto assets.

“We are freezing bank accounts everywhere. More importantly, we are making people less willing to deal with the regime,” Bessent said at the time.

On April 29, Bessent put the seized total at “nearly $500 million.” Roughly a month later that number doubled.

The administration says Iran had been pulling in $400 to $500 million a month through sanctions evasion before the campaign tightened.

The $1 billion figure also turned the seizure into a crypto-market story with sanctions consequences.

JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇮🇷 Treasury Secretary Bessent says US seized $1,000,000,000 worth of crypto from Iran. pic.twitter.com/OvOcGQuUdU

— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) May 29, 2026

Treasury laid out the broader operation in its May 19 release.

OFAC designated a prominent Iranian foreign currency exchange house and front companies that move hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks.

The Treasury Department tied the crypto seizures directly to the shadow banking crackdown:

Today, as a part of Economic Fury, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated a prominent Iranian foreign currency exchange house and associated front companies that oversee hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks.

Collectively, Iranian exchange houses facilitate billions of dollars in foreign currency transactions each year, enabling the regime and its armed forces to evade sanctions, access the international financial system, and move funds derived from oil and petrochemical sales.

The Treasury Department is maintaining maximum pressure on Iran and targeting the regime’s ability to generate, move, and repatriate funds.

Treasury is aggressively advancing Economic Fury and has disrupted billions in projected oil revenue, taken actions that have led to the freezing of nearly half a billion dollars in regime-linked cryptocurrency, and cracked down on Tehran’s shadow banking networks.

In addition, Treasury has designated networks supplying weapons and other military components to Iran. Treasury has also sanctioned a corrupt Iraqi official who has facilitated the sale of oil along with Iran-backed militias operating in Iraq.

That half-billion figure in the May 19 release came before Bessent’s newer $1 billion number, which shows how fast the campaign is moving.

CoinDesk confirmed the seizure and the Economic Fury framing, describing a push to cut off Iran’s access to overseas revenue, banking, and digital-asset rails.

Bessent said the campaign is biting inside Iran. He pointed to unpaid military personnel, police failing to report for duty, and inflation above 200 percent.

For crypto, the lesson runs both ways. The same transparency that lets a regime move money also lets the U.S. find it and grab it.

Sanctions evaders treated digital assets as an escape hatch. Treasury just showed they are easier to seize than a bag of cash in a vault.

The honest, law-abiding side of this market gains from that. A government willing to enforce against bad actors on-chain is a government that takes the asset class seriously.

A billion dollars pulled straight out of Iranian wallets is a strong signal that crypto is now a real front in U.S. economic statecraft, and that the Trump administration intends to fight on it.

Join the conversation!

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.