TRON

Tether, the issuer of the US dollar-pegged stablecoin, announced on September 28 that it helped freeze approximately 550 million dollars' worth of USDT in 2026 in wallets that US authorities identified as linked to Iran's central bank and a sanctions-evasion network. The announcement came as the Trump administration intensifies economic sanctions on Iran. Behind it is "Operation Economic Outcast," launched by the US Treasury Department on August 24, an effort ordered by President Trump to cut off international funding networks supporting the Iranian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Treasury Department said it will focus monitoring on five new sanctions targets: digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping. In April, based on information provided by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control and US law enforcement agencies, Tether helped freeze more than 344 million dollars' worth of USDT at two addresses, and the next day OFAC added the same addresses to its sanctions list as digital currency identifiers of Iran's central bank. In July, after the Treasury expanded its designation of Iran's central bank, more than 130 million dollars' worth of USDT in four wallets was frozen, all of them addresses on TRON. On September 14, the US Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit seeking the forfeiture of about 61 million dollars in crypto assets, saying they represented proceeds from trading Iranian crude oil. Tether currently works with more than 340 law enforcement agencies in 67 countries, and the assets it has helped freeze to date total more than 4.9 billion dollars, of which more than 2.4 billion dollars is related to US authorities.

Bitget said about $387.5 million in cryptocurrency was transferred to attacker-controlled addresses during a Sept. 24 security breach, raising its estimate from an initial $351.6 million as the exchange works to trace and recover the assets. The higher figure reflects a more complete accounting that includes assets on the Zcash and TRON networks omitted from the original estimate, and does not represent additional unauthorized transfers. XRP accounted for one of the largest portions of the theft, with public blockchain records showing nearly 103 million XRP transferred from Bitget-linked wallets, and about 54 million XRP had left the five original holding wallets by 12:41 UTC Saturday, leaving roughly 49 million XRP across those accounts, down from about 70 million about eight hours earlier. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said preliminary IP and blockchain analysis pointed to possible involvement by North Korean hackers, though the attribution has not been independently confirmed, and Mandiant and blockchain security firm SlowMist are assisting with the investigation. Bitget has launched a bounty program offering 5% of affected funds that participants directly help freeze and 5% of funds they help recover, and said its User Protection Fund will cover the financial impact of the breach while customer account balances remain unaffected.

President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire with Iran over on July 8 at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, and the U.S. and Iran have returned to active hostilities. Bitcoin has shown a pattern of shallow drops followed by bounces during flare-ups, and Iran’s acceptance of Bitcoin for Strait of Hormuz transit tolls since March 2026 could create a new demand source estimated at up to $7.7 billion annually. Ethereum has fallen harder than Bitcoin during each escalation, with Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee attributing its weakness to an inverse correlation with oil prices that stokes inflation and tightens macro conditions. Tron, historically Iran’s primary payment rail for stablecoin activities, faces heightened risk after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned major Iranian exchange Nobitex, which has moved at least $2 billion on Tron since 2023, and a prior $90 million hack caused a 6.5% daily drop in Tron’s price.