United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the federal government expects to seize approximately $1 billion in cryptocurrency linked to Iran this week, describing the action as the latest step in Washington's effort to economically cut off Tehran.

Speaking at the Newsmax Policy Summit on Thursday, Bessent said the United States was “probably gonna seize a billion dollars of crypto this week” as part of its crackdowns on Iran. The planned seizure comes amid the country's most recent military conflict, which began in February, and forms part of the broader set of US sanctions on Iran.

“We know where it is, and we are isolating them,” Bessent told Newsmax's Greta Van Susteren. He added that the move was part of a strategy of economically cutting off Iran.

The Treasury Secretary did not clarify whether the digital assets targeted in this week's planned seizure were held at specific exchanges or whether the action resulted from intervention by stablecoin issuers. Those details, if disclosed, would show which parts of the digital-asset infrastructure the action involved.

The announcement builds on earlier measures by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, known as OFAC, which administers and enforces US economic sanctions and announced in August that it was targeting crypto exchanges facilitating the transfer of funds to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Those measures targeted services Treasury said were funding the IRGC and enabling illicit finance. At the time, Bessent said the United States planned to “increase the economic pressure” on Iran, focusing on financial networks funding the country's regime “in dollars, rials, or crypto.”

Bessent made a similar claim in an April interview, saying that authorities had seized $500 million of crypto tied to Iran. Separately, stablecoin issuer Tether reported in September that it had frozen $550 million worth of USDt (USDT) in 2026 as part of US authorities' sanctions on Iran, including $344 million in April alone. Issuer freezes like these are executed at the wallet-address level, giving stablecoin issuers a direct enforcement role alongside government seizures.

The statements and figures collectively illustrate the scale of digital asset enforcement tied to Iran sanctions in 2026, spanning federal seizures and private-sector freezes.

Related: UK sanctions three crypto exchanges tied to Russian illicit funds

Source: Cointelegraph