Iran’s Strait of Hormuz toll booth ran through a bitcoin exchange, U.S. says
The U.S. Treasury sanctioned BitBank, a Tehran exchange it says moved hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin to the Revolutionary Guards and handled payments collected from ships buying passage through the world’s most important oil chokepoint.
- The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Tehran-based cryptocurrency exchange BitBank and its software developer, alleging the exchange moved hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
- Treasury said BitBank also processed some fees collected by Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, which has charged tankers $1 million to $2 million for “safe passage” through the Strait of Hormuz.
- The sanctions freeze BitBank’s property under U.S. jurisdiction and threaten foreign institutions that process its transactions with exclusion from the U.S. financial system, though Treasury identified no cryptocurrency wallet addresses.
Iran has spent this year charging tankers between $1 million and $2 million to cross the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. Treasury said that since June, part of that money has moved through a cryptocurrency exchange in Tehran.
A Thursday release shows The Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated BitBank, a Tehran crypto exchange set up in 2024, alongwith Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, the software firm that built it.
"Today's designations of Iranian digital asset infrastructure make perfectly clear that efforts to finance the Iranian regime using cryptocurrencies are not beyond OFAC's reach," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The OFAC alleged BitBank moved hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the branch of Iran's armed forces that controls much of the country's economy and is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S.
Over the same period, Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority — the outfit Tehran uses to sell ships "safe passage" insurance, itself sanctioned on July 29 — began using BitBank to pass what it collected on to regime entities.
HormuzSafe was developed by Iran's economy ministry and advertises insurance, traffic control and emergency response to vessels that pay. Shipping lawyers have called the arrangement a violation of transit rights under the Law of the Sea, the OFAC said.
Read More: Iran may be turning the Strait of Hormuz into a bitcoin-based insurance market, local reports say
A designation means BitBank's property in U.S. jurisdiction is frozen and Americans are barred from dealing with it. The heavier clause is the secondary sanctions tag attached to every name in Wednesday's action.
That extends the exposure to foreign firms: an exchange in Dubai or a bank in Istanbul that processes BitBank flows can itself be cut off from the U.S. financial system, without any American ever touching the transaction.
For offshore venues that take Iranian users, the threat is losing dollar access rather than facing a U.S. court.
Wednesday's action did not include a single wallet address, however. OFAC has published bitcoin and tron addresses in past crypto designations, including seven tron wallets when it named Zedcex in January, and those strings are what compliance teams actually load into screening software.
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As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Why it matters:
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
