Wallets seized by OFAC may not be Iranian; other state actors instead: Analyst

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that wallets the US targeted as part of Operation Economic Fury were linked to Tehran, but analysis of the wallets' characteristics suggests otherwise.

Multiple wallet addresses recently sanctioned by the US Treasury ‌Department for their ties to Iran may not be linked to the Islamic Republic, but to other state actors instead, analysis published Sunday suggests.

That analysis, by blockchain intelligence firm Nominis, said that while the recent seizing of wallets holding more than $340 million by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) was a significant crypto enforcement event, some of those wallets’ characteristics lack a similarity to previously seized wallets linked Tehran.

“While the use of cryptocurrency by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is well established, this case presents structural and behavioral characteristics that diverge meaningfully from previously observed patterns,” said Nominis CEO Snir Levi.

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