The Central Bank of Iran has allowed domestic businesses to use cryptocurrencies for international trade payments to maintain commercial flows under United States sanctions.
According to Iranian entrepreneurs and analysts, monetary authorities in Tehran have informally permitted traders in recent months to settle cross-border transactions in digital tokens through domestic cryptocurrency exchanges, as reported by the Financial Times.
Importers and exporters in the country have been authorized to conduct international settlements using Tether, a United States dollar-pegged stablecoin, as well as Bitcoin. Iranian authorities have also allowed businesses to trade foreign currencies on a large open market rather than forcing them to adhere to official government exchange rates. Under these revised rules, exporters are permitted to direct their foreign exchange earnings straight toward paying for imported goods without passing the funds through the official state banking system.
An Iranian businessman close to government officials told the Financial Times that the central bank was no longer questioning how cross-border money transfers were completed. He added that the practice of utilizing digital currency to receive export revenues had become fully established across the commercial sector. The Central Bank of Iran declined to comment on the shift in regulatory practice.
Saeed Laylaz, a political economist based in Tehran, said that as economic activity increasingly moves into informal channels, the reliance on digital currencies naturally grows. He noted that there were noticeable holes in the financial blockade surrounding the country.
The Central Bank of Iran, which oversees national monetary policy and foreign exchange regulations from its headquarters in Tehran, has faced severe operational hurdles due to sweeping American financial penalties. Major international banks have largely severed connections with Iranian financial institutions, cutting off access to global correspondent banking networks and the SWIFT international payment messaging system. To bypass these constraints, Iranian commercial entities have increasingly turned to alternative digital mechanisms that operate outside conventional banking channels.
Digital Settlement Tokens and Mining Operations
Tether has emerged as one of the primary digital financial instruments utilized for Iranian cross-border commerce. Issued by Tether Limited, USDT is a stablecoin designed to maintain a 1-to-1 valuation with the United States dollar, offering traders a digital proxy for physical dollars without requiring direct access to American clearing banks. In April, Tether froze $344 million in USDT held in digital wallets that United States authorities linked directly to the Central Bank of Iran.
Data compiled by blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs indicated that nearly $10 billion in cryptocurrency moved through Iran in 2025. TRM Labs is a San Francisco-headquartered digital asset intelligence company that monitors public blockchain ledgers to trace illicit transaction flows, counter-terrorist financing, and international sanctions evasion for financial institutions and government agencies.
Iran has also drawn upon its domestic energy resources to generate digital assets through Bitcoin mining. According to estimates by crypto intelligence provider Elliptic, Iran accounts for approximately 4.5 percent of total global Bitcoin mining activity. Elliptic is a London-headquartered blockchain compliance company that tracks crypto asset movements for corporate clients and law enforcement agencies.
Bitcoin mining is an energy-intensive process in which specialized computer servers solve complex algorithmic problems to validate blockchain transactions and mint new units of cryptocurrency. Iran possesses vast reserves of natural gas and oil, enabling the state to supply cheap, heavily subsidized electricity to domestic mining facilities. These domestic mining operations generate fresh cryptocurrency assets, which Iranian importers can subsequently use to purchase foreign supplies and bypass overseas trade restrictions.
United States Sanctions Enforcement and Secondary Penalties
The United States government has issued repeated warnings targeting individuals and corporate entities that facilitate digital asset transactions with Iranian organizations. The US Department of the Treasury stated that the Iranian regime was increasingly turning to cryptocurrency as its tool of choice to evade international trade controls and financial blockades.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pledged to introduce secondary sanctions on a weekly basis under Operation Economic Outcast, an enforcement initiative announced on August 24. Secondary sanctions empower American authorities to penalize foreign financial institutions operating in third countries if they conduct transactions with sanctioned Iranian entities, effectively cutting those foreign banks off from the US dollar clearing system. Bessent explained that the primary objective of the operation was to shut down financial channels through which Iran generates revenue, circumvents trade restrictions, and funds its military and militant structures.
The first enforcement measure under Operation Economic Outcast occurred on August 31, when the United States Department of the Treasury placed sanctions on Egyptian lender Banque Misr. Founded in 1920, Banque Misr is one of Egypt's oldest and largest state-owned commercial banks, headquartered in Cairo, operating an extensive branch network across North Africa and the Middle East.
Action against foreign banking intermediaries continued on September 4, when the United States imposed sanctions against Golden Global Bank, an interest-free participation bank headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey. According to the US Treasury Department, Golden Global Bank assisted Iran in bypassing international trade restrictions and conducting overseas financial transactions.
