Washington’s economic war on Iran and its ‘shadow’ banking network continues, as on Friday Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the US has seized $1 billion in Iranian cryptocurrency assets as part of the economic component of President Trump’s Operation Epic Fury.
The billion dollar figure represents the running total seized to date, building on prior milestones in the conflict, particularly a recent major April 2026 freeze of $344 million in USDT on the Tron blockchain. By close of April, $500 million total had been seized.
And so clearly with the addition since then of some half-billion dollars more in seized digital assets, the US Treasury program has only greatly accelerated in the last several weeks.
During his Friday speech before the Reagan National Economic Forum, Bessent stated:
“Just outright grabbed the wallets. Some of them may be typing in right now and might not realize their wallet had been grabbed.”
Assets are held “on behalf of the Iranian people” – he described, while framing that the Iranian government had ‘stolen’ the money from the Iranian populace.
Hellbound and Down 