Tether & Circle Freeze $2.49M Linked to Iranian Exchange Wallex

• Tether and Circle froze Wallex’s stablecoins mid-transfer after blacklisting its hot wallet.
• Wallex was bridging assets from Ethereum and Tron to BSC.
• The freeze has caused about $2.49 million to sit dormant on BNB Smart Chain.

Leading stablecoin issuers Tether and Cycle have reportedly blacklisted an Ethereum hot wallet belonging to Iranian crypto exchange Wallex. The issuers simultaneously locked stablecoins while the platform was actively moving assets across chains.

As flagged by blockchain investigator ZachXBT on March 25, the account freeze affected a wallet address that held roughly $117,000 in Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), and other smaller cryptocurrencies.

Wallex Funds Frozen During Cross-Chain Transfers

According to reports, Wallex was consolidating digital assets from multiple hot wallets on Tron and Ethereum into BNB Smart Chain (BSC) using several cross-chain bridges hours before the blacklist. The exchange already landed $2.49 million in Binance-Peg BSC-USD in a separate BSC address, suggesting partial success of the transfers.

However, on-chain data contained in ZachXBT’s release shows the address logged only three small incoming BNB transactions for gas fees, with no recorded outflows. Hence, the funds remain completely idle.

Source: Investigations by ZachXBT

Most crypto community members and observers from the mainstream sector believe the simultaneous freeze by Tether and Cycle is not coincidental. They suspect a coordinated compliance enforcement, since Wallex has not been formally designated by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). 

Iran’s Cryptocurrency Complications

In the meantime, it is worth noting that all crypto activity tied to Iran is subject to broad sanctions exposure. However, this particular incident aligns with a pattern of escalating stablecoin enforcement against Iran-linked platforms.

For context, in January 2026, OFAC sanctioned two UK-registered exchanges, Zedcex and Zedxion, for allegedly facilitating over $1 billion in transactions for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Pressure continues to mount on Iranian exchanges amid heightened geopolitical tensions and the ongoing war in the Middle East. Earlier in March, Iran’s central bank already ordered major crypto platforms, including Wallex and Nobitex, to suspend USDT-toman trading. This position aims to slow capital flight amid ongoing US and Israeli military strikes.

Related: Iranians Move $10.3 Million in Bitcoin to Safety Amid U.S.-Israel Strikes