Iran Buys $507M in Tether to Defend Rial, Says Elliptic

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Iran Buys $507 Million in Tether to Defend Rial, Says Elliptic

Written by Aaron S.,

Editor-In-Chief

Last Updated: January 21, 2026

Key Takeaways

Iran’s central bank purchased around $507 million in USDT to help support its weakening national currency, the rial;
The CBI used the Nobitex exchange for USDT transactions until a 2025 breach forced it to move funds across different blockchains;
Tether later froze about $37 million in wallets linked to the CBI.

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Iran Buys $507 Million in Tether to Defend Rial, Says Elliptic

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Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic has reported that the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) purchased about $507 million worth of Tether’s USDT USDT $1.00 .

According to Elliptic’s report, the CBI began collecting USDT during a time of economic instability.

The report stated, "The CBI's accumulation of USDT began in earnest during a period of extreme economic volatility".

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Over an eight-month period, the rial’s worth dropped by half compared to the US dollar. To slow this decline, the bank may have started using its Tether holdings to buy back rials on the Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex.

Elliptic’s data shows that the Iranian central bank likely used Nobitex, one of the country’s largest crypto exchanges, to handle its USDT transactions.

The partnership continued until June 2025, when Nobitex experienced a security breach.

After that, the CBI changed its approach before exchanging them for other assets and shifting them across several blockchains and trading platforms. They transferred their stablecoins “to a cross-chain bridge service to move the funds from TRON TRX $0.2999 to Ethereum ETH $3,030.29 ".

The report also noted that Tether can freeze wallets holding USDT. Elliptic cited an incident from June 2025 when “several wallets linked to the CBI were blacklisted", which froze around $37 million worth of stablecoins.

Recently, a Chainalysis report showed that Iran’s cryptocurrency activity reached about $7.8 billion in 2025. How? Read the full story.