Geopolitical Chaos Sends Iranian Crypto Flows Plummeting by Over 76%

The currency currency trading in Iran slowed in 2025. It has rocked a set of geopolitical tensions, electronic attacks and the most strikingly flourishing market regulations.

According to Blockchain Analytics TRM LABS, the total coded currency flows to Iran from January to July 2025 amounted to $ 3.7 billion, a 11 % decrease from the same period in 2024.

The contraction was particularly clear after April, as June flows decreased by more than 50 % on an annual basis. This was followed by a decrease more than 76 % in July.

Horring, war and wallet freezes

Many geopolitical and security events weight Exclusively on the Iranian encryption markets, such as nuclear talks stalled with Israel, the outbreak of the armed conflict in June, a breach of $ 90 million in Nobitex, and the inclusion of the black list in Tether for the important Stablecoin title associated with the Iranian.

According to the TRM report, these shocks have transformed trading behavior, prompting capital flows into external exchanges and increasing Blockchains and alternative stablecoins.

Despite the turmoil, Nobitex maintained its central role in the Iranian ecosystems system and dealt with more than 87 % of all the volume of Iranian-related transactions in 2025. Of more than $ 3 billion in the platform, approximately one billion dollars was transferred via TON, with the heavy use of TRC-20 USDT and TRX.

This concentration provides efficiency for users, but also to inflate the regular risks, as shown at the predatory bird group exploited The weaknesses of Nobitex’s infrastructure during the peak of Iranian hostilities.

Double priorities

The hack of 90 million dollars frozen liquidity, slow treatment processing, and temporarily pushing users towards smaller or highly dangerous platforms, which reveals not only the operating weaknesses but also the “double priorities” of the system to enable unjustified monitoring while maintaining a selective privacy for VIP users. TRM LABS has tracked the chain activity to the actors associated with IRGC and the approved entities such as Gaza, which confirms the political dimensions of the attack.

The geopolitical escalation accelerated in June, from the capital’s journey from local stock exchanges, as it appears with increased external flows from Nubicx by more than 150 % in the week before the conflict, and is often transmitted to global exchanges with limited procedures (KYC) or to high -risk platforms.

The exit was exacerbated in July when Tether has froze 42 titles linked to Iranian, many of which were linked to Nobitex and IRGC. Free -term freezing malfunction, which prompted Iranian users to move to alternative stablecoins such as Dai on Polygon.

Local influencers, government alignment channels, and exchanges of this migration are actively encouraged, indicating both the ability to adapt to the participants and the system use of digital assets to overcome the sanctions.

Meanwhile, the local regulatory environment in Iran continued to transform, with the speculative tax law and benefit in August 2025, imposing a tax on capital gains on the trading of encryption. While the gradual implementation is expected, the measure indicates Tehran’s intention to formally organize digital asset markets by bringing cryptocurrencies along with gold, real estate and forex in the tax framework of the system.

Beyond capital markets, encryption is still an important tool for Iran in evading purchases and sanctions. For example, Chinese sellers provide drone components, artificial intelligence devices, and electrical equipment through encryption transactions, and support for the developed underground beating industry KYC these operations by providing forged identity documents for international exchange of international exchanges.