Continuation of the war: Iranians' cryptocurrency wealth is looted by Israel

Author:Zhang Wen , BlockBeats

When someone says that stablecoins are useless, look at the dire Iranians.

A few hours ago, Nobitex, the largest crypto trading platform in Iran, was attacked by Israeli hackers, and US$80 million was stolen, not Bitcoin, but 80 million stablecoins.

Part of the stolen funds

The Israeli hacker organization "Gonjeshke Darande" (Preat Bird) has not stopped after taking away 80 million, saying that it will send out the Notbitex code, so that no asset on the platform is safe.

"After Sepah Bank, it's Nobitex's turn. In the next 24 hours, we will release Nobitex's source code and internal information from its internal network, and any assets left there after that will be at risk. The Nobitex Exchange is the core of the regime's funding for terrorism around the world, and it is the most popular tool for the regime to circumvent international sanctions. We targeted the "predatory sparrow in another cyberattack by Nobitex. Instead, Nobitex doesn't even ostensibly conceal the act of circumventing sanctions, but rather teaches on its website the degree to which the regime relies on such communications is that working at Nobitex is considered a replacement for military service, as it is an important channel for the regime, to Nobitex, to Nobitex. The cyberattack is because it is a tool for financing terrorism and sanctions violations, and its association with such institutions will take your assets to the path of destruction and act before it is too late.

The reason why this hacker group is called an Israeli hacker is that this is not the first time they attacked Iranian services. In recent years, they have continuously attacked Iranian gas stations, banks, ATM machines, factories and other infrastructure equipment, and this time they chose a cryptocurrency trading platform.

The 80 million US dollars was stolen. In the history of the stolen trading platform, the amount is not huge, but the stolen Iranian trading platform and the Israeli hackers who launched the attack have more historical and political significance in the context of the current Middle East war.

In the Middle East, a land with the most complex geopolitical conflict in the world, based on the game of nuclear programs, Israel kicked off the long-planned war with an unexpected air strike on June 13.

Today's attack is also the first time in history. During the war between the two countries, the attack was targeted by the other party's cryptocurrency trading platform.

This shows that Israel already believes that cryptocurrency trading platforms are already the life infrastructure of the Iranian people. To be more precise, what they want to attack is stablecoins. Death, the people suffer. The worst is the local residents of Iran.

Because stablecoins are already a must-have for life that Iranian residents rely heavily on.

Iran's extreme demand for stablecoins

Due to the frequent economic sanctions in recent years, coupled with inflation and geopolitical tensions, the Iranian currency Riyal has continued to depreciate in recent years, with a huge magnitude. In March 2025, the Rial fell to 927,000 Rials/1 USD against the USD, a 55% drop from August of the previous year. Coupled with outrageous inflation, the only thing Iranian residents need is stable currencies such as USD and gold.

A few years ago, Reuters went to interview with a terrible Venezuela, which is also a sovereign currency with high inflation and rapid depreciation. The reporter found that locals had to go to the black market when they exchanged US dollars. The price of the black market was much more expensive than the regular market, and the exchange rate was very inappropriate, but they had no choice but to exchange the serious capital market for US dollars, so they could only go to the black market. The same is true for Iran.

However, in recent years, cryptocurrencies, especially stablecoins, have become the favorites of the Iranian people. Compared with the US dollar's banknote cash, the stablecoins with obvious advantages have made the locals unable to put them down.

How much do you like it?

At the end of 2024, the Iranian government directly asked local cryptocurrency trading platforms to stop withdrawing coins, just to prevent users from bringing out their money. The fundamental reason for this kind of despicable behavior is that Iranians use stablecoins to flee capital, and outflows soar to US$4.2 billion, an increase of 70% over the previous year.

In the local Telegram group in Iran, there are specialists in comparing with the black market exchange rate to release the "Today's Stable Coin Price". The average daily transaction number of stablecoins in the first half of this year increased by more than 40% compared with the same period last year. The middle class in Iran has no longer wanted US dollar cash, but it only needs stablecoins.

Not only residents can use it every day, but the government is also using it. Due to sanctions and other conditions, Iran cannot use common SWIFT at all, forcing them to use stablecoins. Now Iran's import and export settlements, such as the UAE and Turkey, are settled in stablecoins.

A few hours ago, Israel stole the stablecoin that Iran relied heavily on.

"We really need money"

In the Iranian community, we see the helplessness of Iranians without stablecoins.

Some people cannot withdraw coins, some people sigh "nothing" and ordinary people in war experience this powerless double blow.

Whether the assets can be recovered, whether the platform will be responsible, and how much has been lost, everything is still open. For Iranians living in the cracks of high inflation and financial blockade, the crypto assets that were originally used to save lives, to cross-border payments, and to resist the depreciation of the Rial are now unsolved.

We can only pray that this war will end soon and that the Iranian people will regain control of their lives.