Iran's central bank plans to block the rial bank accounts and payment gateways some crypto exchanges use to move customer money, citing concerns over market manipulation in Tether trading. The move builds on temporary USDT-toman trading limits the bank introduced in late September 2026, and lands as exchanges already face US sanctions and a trail of Tether wallet freezes tied to the central bank itself.
Central bank targets the rails, not the tokens
The Central Bank of Iran, known as the CBI, plans to block rial accounts and payment gateways belonging to some crypto exchanges. Without those accounts and gateways, users cannot easily fund their accounts with local currency. The central bank points to concerns over market manipulation in Tether trading as the reason.
This builds on restrictions the CBI already put in place. In late September 2026, the bank capped USDT purchases at 2,000 tokens per user per day on participating exchanges and suspended trading nightly from 21:00 to 09:00 Tehran time. Nobitex and Wallex, two of the country's largest domestic exchanges, took on the limits, and Ramzinex and Bitpin rolled out similar caps.
Those September rules were temporary, expected to run until around October 4 for Nobitex and October 3 for Wallex. They applied only to Tether-rial trading pairs and did not ban holding or withdrawing USDT.
Tether's role in a sanctioned economy
USDT functions as a digital stand-in for the US dollar in Iran's economy, which US sanctions have squeezed heavily, and domestic exchanges have become key on-ramps for the stablecoin. The US sanctioned Iranian exchanges, including Nobitex, in June 2026.
Tether itself has intervened against wallets tied to the central bank. The company froze approximately $344 million in April 2026 and $131 million in July 2026 linked to CBI-associated wallets. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic previously identified over $507 million connected to Iranian USDT acquisitions, a figure suggesting the central bank had itself been an active buyer of the stablecoin before Tether froze a large chunk of those holdings.
Exchanges face pressure from both sides
For Nobitex and Wallex, the risk is operational. They already face US sanctions pressure and a run of temporary trading caps, so losing banking rails would hit their core business of converting rials into crypto. Tether's freezes show issuers can intervene when wallets tie to sanctioned entities.
Iran's own restrictions show domestic regulators can squeeze from the other side, leaving users caught between an issuer that can freeze tokens and a central bank that can cut off the rails used to buy them.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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