The Central Bank of Iran plans to block rial bank accounts and payment gateways used by some crypto exchanges, citing concerns about market manipulation. The measures would make it harder for users to fund exchange accounts with rials and build on temporary restrictions introduced in late September 2026. Those rules limited USDT purchases to 2,000 per user per day on participating platforms and suspended trading from 21:00 to 09:00 Tehran time. Nobitex and Wallex were among the affected exchanges, while Ramzinex and Bitpin introduced similar limits. The earlier restrictions were expected to last until around October 4 for Nobitex and October 3 for Wallex, and applied only to Tether-rial trading pairs rather than USDT holdings or withdrawals. USDT is widely used in Iran as a digital substitute for the dollar amid US sanctions. The United States sanctioned Iranian exchanges including Nobitex in June 2026, while Tether froze approximately $344 million in April 2026 and $131 million in July 2026 linked to wallets associated with the CBI. Elliptic previously identified more than $507 million connected to Iranian USDT acquisitions, suggesting the central bank had been an active buyer before a large portion of those holdings was frozen. Exchanges now face pressure from both domestic banking restrictions and potential token freezes by issuers. Key issues to monitor are which platforms lose access to accounts, whether the September limits are extended, how the rial responds and whether Tether freezes more Iranian-linked wallets.