Due to the collapse of nuclear negotiations with Israel, the $90 million hack of Iran’s biggest crypto exchange, and the major stubcoin blacklist, the flow to Iran’s crypto trading platform fell in 2025, says blockchain analytics firm TRM Lab.
Iran’s code flow reached $3.7 billion between January and July, a decline of 11% compared to the same period last year.
“This slump coincided with the collapse of nuclear negotiations, a 12-day conflict with Israel from June 13th, and a widespread blackout in Iran.
Iran’s cryptocurrency flow began to drop sharply in June, shortly after a $90 million hack at Nobitex, which handles 87% of the country’s cryptocurrency transactions.
Many Iranians rely on US dollar stubcoins as a valuable storage amid a surge in inflation, skirting the country’s harsh sanctions.
Nobitex hacks big contributors to Iran’s Crypto Shake-up
Trust in the Iran-based virtual asset service provider (VASP) has worsened following a Nobitex security breaches that fell into the hands of Israeli Group’s predatory sparrows on June 18th. Tensions between Iran and Israel reached its peak.
Nobitex continues to dominate Iran’s crypto trading volume, but the incident has disrupted liquidity, slowed transaction processing, and temporarily pushed users onto alternative platforms, TRM said.
Rising tensions between Iran and Israel have further amplified the spill, surged by over 150% in the worst week, with the majority of that volume heading towards high-risk foreign exchanges with little or no customer checks.
Tether’s blacklist speed has slowed down
Stablecoin Issuer Tether also conducted the largest ever freeze on Iranian-related fund on July 2nd, blacklisting 42 Crypto addresses with Tether (USDT) balances.
The incident caused a coordinated push from Iranian exchanges, influencers and state support channels so that it could offload the Iranian USDT balance (Iran’s most widely used networks and tokens) and move funds to polygonal DAI (DAI).
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Many everyday Iranians continue to look at codes as a hedge against inflation, TRM said it emphasizes Iran’s strong reliance on stubcoins.
Iran continues to use code for political purposes
Iran still relies on cryptography to pay for sensitive products from Chinese chip resellers, including hardware important for artificial intelligence, drone components and other electrical equipment.
It also uses Crypto to fund spy payments with foreign operatives, the Crypto Analytics company added.
However, Iran’s illegal crypto transactions account for less than 1% of the total.
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