Outflows from Iran's Nobitex Surge 700% as Crypto Becomes Geopolitical Hedge

The United States has long used financial sanctions to restrict Iran’s access to dollars and cross-border payment services, prompting local businesses to turn to cryptocurrency. TRM Labs tracked about 60 wallets linked to sanctioned Iranian entities. Their transactions involved CoinEx and Nobitex, highlighting sanctions-compliance and anti-money-laundering risks at centralized exchanges.

A TRM Labs report said the wallets had moved more than $3.84 billion in cryptocurrency through CoinEx since 2019. About $2.7 billion, or roughly 70% of the total, went to Nobitex, Iran’s largest domestic exchange. CoinEx subsequently denied serving as a funding gateway for sanctioned Iranian crypto companies, leaving the two sides at odds over the exchange’s responsibility.

Iran has long faced U.S. financial sanctions and limited access to SWIFT, prompting government agencies and private-sector users to turn to crypto assets for cross-border transfers. Chainalysis estimated that Iran’s crypto ecosystem reached $7.78 billion in 2025. Addresses linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, received more than 50% of the value in the fourth quarter, making exchanges a key focus of U.S. efforts to shut down sanctions-evasion channels.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, sanctioned Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex on June 2, 2026. Nobitex handled more than 50% of Iran’s digital-asset inflows in 2025 and helped the Central Bank of Iran acquire hundreds of millions of dollars in stablecoins. OFAC also sanctioned senior executives, including Nobitex chairman and co-founder Amir Hossein Rad.

Years of Western financial sanctions on Iran have obstructed traditional banks’ cross-border channels, prompting individuals and state-run institutions to turn to crypto assets. Nobitex, founded in 2018, handles much of the country’s trading volume. Its founders’ ties to the supreme leader’s circle and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have raised concerns about sanctions evasion and terrorist financing.

Reuters reported on May 1 that brothers Ali and Mohammad Kharrazi owned Nobitex under the less commonly used surname Aghamir, and that the exchange had processed hundreds of millions of dollars for Iran’s central bank and the Revolutionary Guard. The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Nobitex and three other exchanges on June 2, saying Nobitex received more than 50% of Iran’s digital-asset inflows in 2025.

Long-running US sanctions administered by OFAC have restricted Iran’s access to foreign currency, often prompting residents to turn to the US dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT and local exchange Nobitex to preserve their assets. Following the rial’s sharp depreciation, crypto markets have increasingly become underground channels for currency conversion, hedging and bets on a rebound. Such transactions, however, remain exposed to sanctions and asset-freeze risks.

The Iranian rial has lost more than 96% of its value over the past two months. At one point in Tehran, $200 could be exchanged for 160 million rials in cash. Iran’s central bank has also used USDT to intervene in the foreign-exchange market. Investors nevertheless face the risk that Tether could freeze their funds, along with risks involving Nobitex channels, currency reform and further exchange-rate declines.