The US Treasury sanctioned the Iranian cryptocurrency exchange BitBank on Thursday, accusing it of moving hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and processing payments for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The action, taken under Executive Order 13902, is part of the Trump administration’s Operation Economic Outcast campaign against Iran’s financial networks, announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on August 24 as an effort to cut off the revenue channels Iran uses to move oil, evade sanctions and fund allied groups. It is also the first time the campaign has directly named an exchange tied to the Hormuz transit fee system, linking the maritime standoff to the digital asset sector in a single designation.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control designated BitBank, its software developer Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, and three associates of Iranian financier Babak Zanjani: Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein and Seyed Adel Heidari. Treasury described the newly designated entities and individuals as key components of the Iranian regime’s infrastructure for evading sanctions through digital assets. Under Executive Order 13902, any property of the designated parties in the US or in the possession of US persons is blocked, and transactions involving them by US persons are generally prohibited.
Hormuz payments
According to the Treasury statement, BitBank was used by the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, an Iranian maritime platform sanctioned on July 29, to process fees collected from vessels seeking safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Hormuz Safe marketed insurance, security, traffic management and emergency assistance to shippers after Iran closed the waterway to normal commercial transit following the US and Israeli strikes on February 28. The platform accepted bitcoin and other digital assets, and US officials described it as part of an IRGC-linked revenue system. Some of the risks covered by its insurance arrangement, Treasury said, included vessel seizures and other threats associated with Iranian activity in the waterway, which effectively priced the danger Iran itself created into the fees shippers had to pay.
Between June and July, Treasury said, Zanjani used BitBank to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoin to the IRGC. The agency has not published bitcoin addresses or transaction hashes for either the Hormuz Safe or BitBank designations, so the public record does not include an on-chain trail. Earlier reporting on the Hormuz Safe action noted the same absence of identifiers and payment totals in OFAC’s initial announcement, a gap that makes independent verification of the dollar amounts difficult for outside analysts and complicates screening for firms that rely on address lists rather than entity names.
The Zanjani network
Zanjani, 52, has been a target of US sanctions since late January, when Treasury designated him alongside his two largest digital asset projects, Zedcex Exchange Limited and Zedxion Exchange Limited, for laundering money on behalf of the IRGC. In July the US imposed sanctions on nine more firms tied to him, including his Iran-based Dot One conglomerate, entities in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and several of his top executives.
BitBank’s software developer Pishtaz Simorgh is a subsidiary of the OFAC-designated Dot One Value Creation Group. The exchange has been promoted by Zanjani on social media since at least 2024 and is listed as a partner by several other companies in his sanctions-evasion network. Treasury’s characterization of the arrangement points to a dual structure: commercial ventures that operate openly and covert financial platforms that move state-linked money behind them.
“Through this combined infrastructure, Zanjani’s enterprises have served as both public-facing commercial ventures and covert financial platforms enabling sanctions evasion and support to Iranian state-linked entities,” Treasury said in its statement.
A year of Iran crypto sanctions
The BitBank designation extends a busy run for Treasury’s Iran-focused crypto enforcement. In June, OFAC sanctioned Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex, accusing the exchanges of helping sanctioned Iranian actors access digital assets. Nobitex was described at the time as Iran’s largest crypto exchange. On August 7, the agency added Shelbit and Aban Tether, alleging that Shelbit-linked addresses had sent more than $2 million to IRGC-controlled addresses and received more than $1 million from IRGC-linked wallets, and that Aban Tether had processed millions of dollars involving previously sanctioned Iranian exchanges.
State Department spokesperson Thomas Pigott said the United States remains committed to denying the Iranian regime and the IRGC access to the resources they use to threaten regional stability, support terrorism and undermine international security.
Shipping context
The sanctions land as the Strait of Hormuz remains the central flashpoint of the US-Iran conflict. Only a handful of vessels per day are passing through the strait compared with pre-war levels, despite repeated claims from Washington that the route is open. The waterway carried about one-fifth of global oil supplies before the conflict began in late February, and its closure has pushed Brent crude above $104 a barrel this week. US military action against Iran, sanctions waves and diplomatic mediation efforts through Qatar and Oman have so far failed to reopen the route.
Treasury warned that entities facilitating money laundering or sanctions evasion on Iran’s behalf risk being cut off from the US financial system, and said it is coordinating with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Gulf partners and others to target the regime’s revenue sources. Compliance teams at exchanges and payment processors now face a longer list of designated Iranian platforms, and the pattern of the year’s actions suggests more designations are likely as the war grinds on.