WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States could seize $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency linked to Iran, as the Trump administration intensifies efforts to isolate Tehran economically.

“We’re probably gonna seize a billion dollars of crypto this week,” Bessent said at the Newsmax NPolicy Summit in Washington, adding that authorities knew where the assets were held and were working to isolate Iran.

The Treasury Department has previously described cryptocurrency as a “tool of choice for sanctions evasion” for Iran — a framing that has made digital-asset enforcement a recurring feature of the administration’s broader Iran pressure campaign.

The proposed seizure follows U.S. sanctions imposed on seven Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges since June, including Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex. Those measures were carried out through the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the agency responsible for administering U.S. sanctions programs. OFAC designations generally prohibit U.S. persons and businesses from transacting with listed targets, which is why exchanges and compliance teams routinely screen counterparties and wallet addresses against its sanctions lists.

Bessent did not identify the targeted wallets or clarify whether the planned action would be additional to previously announced seizures — details that will show whether the new figure is incremental or a restatement of prior actions, and what to watch for if the seizure is formally confirmed.

In May 2026, Bessent said the United States had seized about $1 billion in Iranian-linked cryptocurrency, although a subsequent Treasury Department statement cited an earlier estimate of nearly $500 million. The latest remarks did not establish how much cryptocurrency has been seized in total, leaving the cumulative figure — and how any new action would be counted against prior estimates — unresolved.

The announcement adds to a series of steps the administration has taken this year to restrict Iran’s ability to move funds through digital assets, part of a wider strategy to tighten economic pressure on Tehran. For crypto businesses, the campaign underscores that Iran-linked funds remain an active sanctions-enforcement priority, keeping screening for such addresses a core compliance requirement for exchanges and service providers operating under U.S. jurisdiction.