The US Treasury Department expands sanctions on Iran to include the digital asset industry

The US Treasury Department has expanded the scope of sanctions against Iran, including the entire digital asset industry, and OFAC can take measures against industry operators regardless of their location. The measure came into effect on August 24th, and the scope of sanctions includes gold, shipping, aviation, and technology. Elliptic tracking found that the Iranian central bank obtained at least $507 million worth of USDT; Tether froze $344 million in USDT related to the bank in April. Iran obtains encrypted assets through Bitcoin mining, and Elliptic estimates that its Bitcoin mining accounts for approximately 4.5% of the global total, generating billions of dollars worth of encrypted assets annually. This measure will not automatically sanction all Iranian cryptocurrency users, but the US Treasury Department will have greater authority to target supporters of the industry and related designated entities.