Exporters can now fund imports with overseas earnings without first selling their foreign currency at official rates, the Financial Times reported.
Iran’s central bank has reportedly eased foreign currency controls to encourage businesses to bring overseas earnings home, including through cryptocurrency, amid tightening US sanctions.
This includes using Tether’s USDt (USDT) and Bitcoin (BTC) to settle cross-border transactions through Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.
Exporters can also use their earnings to finance imports directly without first selling their foreign currency through the government’s exchange platform at official rates, the report said.
The Central Bank of Iran did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
In June, blockchain analytics company TRM Labs reported more than $3.8 billion in flows between crypto exchange CoinEx and sanctioned Iranian entities over more than seven years. CoinEx denied having any commercial relationship with the Iranian government or domestic Iranian exchanges and said it had never provided funding channels to sanctioned parties.
In early June, the US Treasury sanctioned four Iranian crypto exchanges as part of its “Economic Fury” campaign. Days before the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US had seized about $1 billion in Iranian crypto assets.
On July 14, Bessent said US authorities had directed a freeze of more than $130 million in crypto held in wallets linked to Iran’s central bank.
Related: US authorities freeze $344M in crypto linked to Iran