US Treasury sanctions crypto venue over Iran

TLDR

The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned Iranian crypto exchange BitBank for allegedly routing hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to Irans Revolutionary Guard via a Strait of Hormuz toll scheme.

1. U.S. authorities say BitBank and its developer processed Bitcoin payments from ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz and funneled them to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
2. The sanctions freeze BitBanks property under U.S. jurisdiction, bar Americans from dealing with it, and threaten foreign firms that touch its flows with secondary sanctions risk.
3. This marks a deeper U.S. campaign against Iranian crypto venues and infrastructure, raising compliance stakes for exchanges and service providers that might indirectly touch sanctioned networks.

Confidence: high because multiple independent reports describe the same Treasury action and names.

Deep Dive

1. Who Was Targeted And Why

The U.S. Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tehran based crypto exchange BitBank, its software developer Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, and three associates of financier Babak Zanjani, alleging they moved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) between June and July, via the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority toll scheme on the Strait of Hormuz. Reports from outlets including CoinDesk and Cointelegraph say Hormuz Safe charged tankers one to two million dollars in Bitcoin for safe passage, then used BitBank to route part of these fees to the IRGC and the Iranian state. BitBank is an Iranian venue established in 2024 and is explicitly distinct from Japans regulated exchange bitbank inc.

2. How The Sanctions Bite

Under OFACs designations, BitBank, Pishtaz Simorgh and the named individuals are added to the U.S. sanctions list under Executive Order 13902, which was recently expanded to cover Irans digital asset sector. U.S. persons must block any property of these parties in U.S. jurisdiction and are prohibited from dealings with them, while OFACs secondary sanctions warning means foreign banks or exchanges processing BitBank related flows could themselves be cut off from the U.S. financial system. Notably, Treasury did not publish specific crypto wallet addresses in this action, which makes screening more reliant on entity level and ownership checks rather than simple address blacklists, as highlighted in coverage from CoinDesk and Crypto.news.

3. Broader Campaign And Crypto Impact

This move is part of Operation Economic Outcast, a broader U.S. effort to target Iranian revenue channels across oil, shipping and digital assets, following earlier campaigns that sanctioned Iranian exchanges such as Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin, Ramzinex, Shelbit and Aban Tether for facilitating access to sanctioned actors. The accumulating actions show Washington increasingly treating Iranian crypto venues, developers and executives as pieces of an integrated sanctions evasion infrastructure rather than isolated trading businesses, as detailed in analysis from CryptoSlate and The Block. For the wider crypto market, Bitcoin itself is not sanctioned, but flows linked to designated entities can taint addresses and counterparties, forcing global exchanges and custodians to tighten sanctions screening and sometimes over block to stay on the safe side.

Conclusion

U.S. Treasurys sanctions on BitBank are less about banning Bitcoin and more about cutting off a specific Iran linked payments pipeline that used crypto rails to reach the IRGC. For crypto users and venues outside Iran, the key takeaway is that sanctions enforcement increasingly reaches into digital asset infrastructure, making robust KYC and sanctions screening essential and raising the compliance cost of touching high risk jurisdictions or opaque counterparties.