TEHRAN - Crypto company Tether has blocked the accounts of dozens of Iranian users on its platform under pressure from the Israeli regime, according to a report published in the Iranian media.
The report said that Tether had blocked 187 wallet addresses on its platform since mid-September on requests from the Israeli regime and its subsidiary organizations.
The report said the owners of the wallets had used Tether stablecoin USDT to carry out their online payments, adding that the wallets had more than $1.5 billion worth of activity in the year to September.
Fars said the move by Tether had served Israel’s campaign of economic terrorism against Iran.
It said the move had also caused many other Iranian users to empty their wallets or significantly reduce their assets on the platform.
The report comes days after reports published on Iranian economic news websites suggested that Tether had suspended Iranian-linked accounts on its platform at the request of Israel’s so-called anti-terror financing body NBCTF.
The reports cited information provided by the NBCTF, which showed that Tether had issued an order on September 13 to block the Iranian users from the platform.
There has been no reaction from Iranian officials to the reports.
However, the move comes amid growing U.S. economic pressure on Iran as Washington continues to issue sanctions against the country to hamper its ability to engage in lawful economic and trade activity in the world.
Some Iranian businesses have been using crypto assets to carry out or receive foreign payments, especially for imports and exports, since Iran came under US sanctions in 2018.