U.S. Treasury Sanctions Four Major Iranian Crypto Exchanges, Including Nobitex

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.

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.

Iran has long faced restrictions on U.S. dollar settlement and sanctions targeting its access to international banks. In recent years, it has turned to stablecoins such as USDT, over-the-counter dealers and P2P channels to move oil revenue and cross-border funds. The U.S. Treasury’s inclusion of cryptocurrency channels in its “maximum pressure” framework marks an expansion of sanctions beyond banks, oil tankers and specific wallets to stablecoin on- and off-ramp networks and their financial intermediaries.

On April 29, 2026, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced six areas of action against Iran, including “cryptocurrency access channels” for the first time, and said tens of billions of dollars in revenue had been blocked. Separately, OFAC added 17 individuals and 18 entities to its sanctions list on April 28. United Nations data showed shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell 95.3% after February 28, while European crude oil prices rose 53% over the same period.

Nobitex is Iran's largest cryptocurrency exchange and a key gateway for converting rials into digital assets such as Bitcoin and USDT. Elliptic said the platform processed $7.2 billion in incoming and outgoing transactions in 2025. With Iran facing long-running international sanctions, rial depreciation and restrictions on cross-border banking, crypto assets offer a means of preserving value, transferring funds across borders and bypassing traditional financial channels. Those uses draw particular attention during geopolitical conflict.

Outflows from Nobitex surged 700% within minutes of U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28, 2026, according to Elliptic. Chainalysis said about $10.3 million had flowed out of Iranian exchanges by March 2. TRM Labs, however, said more than $35 million was transferred into Nobitex's own cold wallets as part of routine treasury operations, meaning the activity did not yet conclusively indicate broad capital flight.