The goal of the grant is to improve how funds move across UN agencies and make aid payments faster, cheaper, and more transparent. UN officials have said digital payments can reduce administrative costs and stretch limited humanitarian budgets. Meanwhile, Elliptic reported that the Central Bank of Iran accumulated approximately $507 million in Tether USDT during a period when Iran’s rial sharply declined in value. The firm said the stablecoins may have been used to support the currency or facilitate trade, with funds moving through domestic exchange Nobitex before being shifted across blockchains. Stablecoins Gain Ground in Global Aid Stablecoin issuer Circle expanded its involvement in global humanitarian finance by issuing a new grant to help support the rollout of digital financial infrastructure across the United Nations system. The initiative was announced during the World Economic Forum in Davos, and it is designed to make humanitarian aid payments faster, more transparent, and more cost-efficient by modernizing how funds move across UN agencies. The grant, delivered through the Circle Foundation, will support the UN’s Digital Hub of Treasury Solutions (DHoTS), a program focused on improving how monetary value is transferred within the UN ecosystem. While Circle did not reveal the size or structure of the grant, it explained that the funding will help streamline payment flows and reduce friction caused by legacy financial systems that still dominate humanitarian finance. According to Circle , tens of billions of dollars in annual humanitarian funding currently rely on slow and costly infrastructure, limiting the overall effectiveness of aid delivery. This latest effort builds on Circle’s earlier collaboration with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, and DHoTS in 2022. That pilot program facilitated stablecoin-based aid payments using USDC to support displaced Ukrainians. The success of that initiative helped lay the groundwork for experimentation with blockchain-based payment rails inside the UN system. Announcement from Circle Officials in the UN have framed stablecoins as a practical tool for maximizing limited resources. UN Development Programme administrator Alexander De Croo said digital payment infrastructure can help the organization “make every dollar work harder” at a time when humanitarian budgets are under pressure. By reducing settlement delays and administrative overhead, stablecoins could allow more aid to reach recipients directly. Barham Salih said that the use of modern financial technology is not only about efficiency, but also about preserving dignity and choice for people forced to flee their homes. He believes that digital payments can empower recipients by giving them more control over how and when aid is used, while still ensuring accountability for donor funds. Circle’s support for the UN comes shortly after the company formally launched the Circle Foundation in December. Iran’s Central Bank Quietly Accumulates USDT Meanwhile, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic reported that the Central Bank of Iran accumulated more than half a billion dollars’ worth of Tether USDT. Evidence suggests that the stablecoins were used to support Iran’s collapsing national currency and facilitate international trade. According to a report that was released on Wednesday, Elliptic estimates that Iran’s central bank held approximately $507 million in USDT, the US dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Tether. The analytics firm said the accumulation coincided with a period of severe economic turmoil, during which the Iranian rial lost roughly half its value in just eight months, hitting record lows against the US dollar. Elliptic believes the central bank may have used USDT to conduct de-facto open market operations, purchasing rials through crypto markets in an effort to slow the currency’s decline. This is an approach that would traditionally rely on foreign exchange reserves. (Source: Elliptic) Elliptic explained that much of the central bank’s USDT activity was routed through Nobitex, one of Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. This was the case until June of 2025, when Nobitex suffered a major security breach. After that incident, the report suggests the central bank adjusted its strategy, moving its USDT through a cross-chain bridge to shift funds from the TRON network to Ethereum, before exchanging the assets and distributing them across other blockchains and platforms. Despite the opaque movement of funds, Elliptic said that Tether has the technical ability to freeze wallets holding USDT. The firm pointed to a June 2025 incident in which several wallets linked to the central bank were blacklisted, which resulted in the freezing of roughly $37 million in stablecoins. The report also shed some light on a surge in crypto usage across Iran. Data from Chainalysis shows that Iran’s cryptocurrency ecosystem exceeded $7.8 billion in activity in 2025, as citizens turned to digital assets like Bitcoin to protect savings amid inflation, sanctions, and economic instability.
