WANA (Sep 27) – The United Nations Security Council convened to review a draft resolution proposed by Russia and China aimed at preventing the automatic reinstatement of UN sanctions on Iran. The resolution, which sought a six-month technical extension of Resolution 2231, failed to pass. It received four votes in favor (China, Russia, Pakistan, and Algeria), nine votes against, and two abstentions. As a result, the process known as Paragraph 11 of Resolution 2231 has entered its final stage, putting sanctions lifted after the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) on the verge of automatic reactivation.
This political development immediately reverberated through Iran’s informal financial markets. Following news of the failed resolution, the price of Tether (USDT)—a cryptocurrency globally pegged to one US dollar—experienced sharp volatility in Iranian exchanges. In some cases, its price jumped from 108,000 tomans to 110,000 and then to 114,000, before retreating again.
Analysts argue that such fluctuations are less the result of real changes in supply and demand, and more the product of emotional reactions by traders and price manipulation by certain exchanges. Since Iran’s Tether market operates around the clock and is closely tied to the free-market exchange rate of the U.S. dollar, even short-term shifts can quickly influence the cash currency market and, by extension, the prices of goods and services.
Observers note that the recurring pattern of “spike – pullback – stabilization” in the Tether market points to a form of organized speculation. In this cycle, artificial volatility helps establish new price floors, gradually pushing overall price levels higher. Consequently, even if political tensions ease or news pressure subsides, markets often do not return to earlier levels and instead continue on a slow upward trajectory.
Economists warn that in the absence of effective oversight of crypto exchanges and with limited transparency in transactions, this cycle risks becoming a permanent mechanism for price inflation—one whose impact extends well beyond the cryptocurrency market into Iran’s wider economy.
Araghchi at the UN Security Council session. Social media /WANA News Agency
