Iran calls for a reconciliation MOU bottom line: 50% asset freeze must be returned on the spot, including $1 billion in cryptocurrency

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibabadi explicitly demanded that any signed MOU must immediately unblock at least 50% of the frozen assets, estimated to be over 12 billion USD; simultaneously, negotiations involve nearly 1 billion USD of Iranian crypto assets frozen by the U.S. last year.
(Background: Trump: End negotiations with Iran within 60 days! Both sides to exchange missile strikes in June)
(Additional context: Engineer who uncovered Zcash's four-year vulnerability: Monero (XMR) also to undergo audit)

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Legal and International Affairs, publicly stated this Friday: once a reconciliation memorandum of understanding (MOU) is reached with the U.S., Iran demands that at least 50% of its frozen financial assets must be "immediately available" upon signing, with the remaining funds to be gradually unfrozen within one to two months after the agreement takes effect.

Gharibabadi emphasized in the statement that these assets are Iran's sovereign property, long "illegally frozen" by the U.S., and that unfreezing them is a core prerequisite for any potential agreement. "Only after Iran's interests and concerns are fully considered will Tehran regard any draft as the final version."

344 million USDT is also on the negotiation list

On the other hand, the U.S. Department of the Treasury launched "Economic Firestorm" at the end of April 2026. Under this operation, multiple Iranian-related crypto assets were frozen, most notably 344 million USD in USDT on the TRON blockchain, with total seizures approaching 1 billion USD.

This is not an isolated incident. The U.S. has long accused Iran of transferring funds through cryptocurrency exchanges, and the Central Bank of Iran is also alleged to use crypto assets to hide cross-border transactions and evade SWIFT sanctions. Stablecoins on the TRON chain, due to low transaction fees and fast transfer speeds, have become a common channel for sanctions evasion. The USDT frozen this time is direct evidence of this pathway.

It is worth noting: if U.S.-Iran negotiations reach an agreement and sanctions are fully lifted, how the unfreezing of these on-chain assets will be implemented remains unclear in the current framework of the agreement.

14:00 MOU, Hormuz Strait, nuclear enrichment—negotiation on all fronts

Currently, Iran and the U.S. are negotiating a 14-issue MOU, led by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Based on the known framework, the agreement includes: Iran suspending nuclear enrichment activities, phased U.S. sanctions relief, releasing Iranian assets frozen worldwide, and both sides lifting military restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz.

Core deadlock: Unfreeze first or fulfill commitments first

The fundamental disagreement between Iran and the U.S. concerns the sequence: Iran insists that asset unfreezing must be synchronized with the signing of the MOU, rejecting the "fulfill commitments first, then unfreeze" arrangement; the U.S. insists that asset release should be tied to Iran’s substantive compliance progress to avoid a repeat of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal disputes. Gharibabadi also pointed out that the technical details of the fund access mechanism and financial arrangements will be negotiated separately within 60 days after the MOU is signed, meaning that even if the MOU is finalized, many details remain to be clarified.