THE US GOVERNMENT SAYS IT IS ABOUT TO SEIZE $1 BILLION IN IRANIAN CRYPTO. 🚨
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it out loud on Thursday: "We're probably going to seize $1 billion of crypto this week." He added that the US knows where the assets are and is isolating them.
I went through every report on this so you don't have to. Here is what is actually going on:
🔒 In April, the US said it had already seized about $500 million of Iran-linked crypto
💵 Tether, the company behind USDT, says it froze $550 million this year on US sanctions orders
🏦 On September 17, the US sanctioned an Iranian crypto exchange called BitBank for allegedly moving hundreds of millions in Bitcoin to the Revolutionary Guard
FOR BEGINNERS
governments can't touch Bitcoin directly the way they freeze a bank account. But they CAN pressure the companies that sit around it, like exchanges and stablecoin issuers. When Tether freezes a wallet, that money is stuck. That is how a "decentralized" asset still ends up getting frozen when the government decides to act.
Iran has been using crypto to get around sanctions and settle trade. Now the US is going straight after those wallets.
Nobody knows yet exactly which wallets or how it will be done. But a $1 billion move would be the biggest crypto seizure tied to a country in the middle of an active conflict.
Do you think crypto is still a way around sanctions, or is that era ending? 👇
$BTC #Sanctions #Bessent #USTreasury #CryptoSeizure #BinanceSquare
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it out loud on Thursday: "We're probably going to seize $1 billion of crypto this week." He added that the US knows where the assets are and is isolating them.
I went through every report on this so you don't have to. Here is what is actually going on:
🔒 In April, the US said it had already seized about $500 million of Iran-linked crypto
💵 Tether, the company behind USDT, says it froze $550 million this year on US sanctions orders
🏦 On September 17, the US sanctioned an Iranian crypto exchange called BitBank for allegedly moving hundreds of millions in Bitcoin to the Revolutionary Guard
FOR BEGINNERS
governments can't touch Bitcoin directly the way they freeze a bank account. But they CAN pressure the companies that sit around it, like exchanges and stablecoin issuers. When Tether freezes a wallet, that money is stuck. That is how a "decentralized" asset still ends up getting frozen when the government decides to act.
Iran has been using crypto to get around sanctions and settle trade. Now the US is going straight after those wallets.
Nobody knows yet exactly which wallets or how it will be done. But a $1 billion move would be the biggest crypto seizure tied to a country in the middle of an active conflict.
Do you think crypto is still a way around sanctions, or is that era ending? 👇
$BTC #Sanctions #Bessent #USTreasury #CryptoSeizure #BinanceSquare