US Sanctions BitBank Exchange Over Bitcoin Transfers to Iranian Guards

The US Department of the Treasury on Sept. 17, 2026 designated Tehran crypto exchange BitBank as part of a sanctions action against Iranian digital asset infrastructure. The department named the exchange, its software developer and three men tied to financier Babak Zanjani. It said the network moved hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The designations came from the Office of Foreign Assets Control under what the department calls Operation Economic Outcast, a campaign against Iranian revenue streams that was announced on Aug. 24, 2026. The action blocks property of the named persons in US jurisdiction and bars US persons from dealing with them. Foreign firms that handle their transactions face possible loss of access to the US financial system.

"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 said. His remarks appeared in the release alongside the names of the designated persons. "If you support the Iranian regime, the Department of the Treasury will sanction you," he added.

The exchange at the center of the order is BitBank, which the department described as an Iranian digital assets exchange controlled by Zanjani. CoinDesk described it as a Tehran exchange set up in 2024. That date matters because the Iranian BitBank is a separate entity from bitbank inc, the licensed Japanese exchange founded in 2014, a distinction Cointelegraph drew in its account of the sanctions.

Zanjani has been on the US sanctions list since January. The department said he was sentenced to death in Iran in 2016 for taking funds from the National Iranian Oil Company and that the sentence was commuted in 2024. By 2025 he had returned to public view as a backer of state linked commercial projects, and the department said he built digital asset companies that washed funds for the Guard Corps.

Between June and July of this year, Zanjani used BitBank to send hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin to the Guard Corps, the release says. The Guard Corps controls large parts of the Iranian economy and is listed by the US as a terrorist organization. The same transfer figure sat at the center of a second account of the designation.

The Hormuz payments

Since June, the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority has used BitBank to pass on payments it collected, according to the release. Hormuz Safe is the outfit Tehran uses to sell ships insurance for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and the US placed it under sanctions on July 29. The department said the fees flowed through BitBank to the Iranian regime.

The sums charged to shippers are large. Iran has charged tankers between $1 million and $2 million for passage through the strait this year, according to that outlet's reporting on the scheme. The strait is the narrow waterway through which a large share of seaborne oil moves, and Tehran has pressed vessels to buy cover against seizure by Iran itself.

Hormuz Safe was put together by Iran's economy ministry and markets insurance, traffic control and emergency response to vessels that pay. Shipping lawyers have called the arrangement a breach of transit rights under the Law of the Sea, the report says. The Treasury had alleged in an earlier release that the insurance demand was part of a Guard Corps backed plan to tax movement through the chokepoint.

The department also named Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, the developer of the BitBank software. The firm is a subsidiary of the Dot One Value Creation Group, which the US sanctioned in July, and it built its brand around the exchange, the release says. Both BitBank and Pishtaz Simorgh were designated for operating in the digital asset sector of the Iranian economy under Executive Order 13902.

Three men were named alongside the two entities. Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein has taken part in much of Zanjani's sanctions evasion work, including oil exports and digital asset transfers that ended with the Guard Corps. Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein is a Dot One manager and the chief executive of Pishtaz Simorgh. Seyed Adel Heidari is the vice chairman of Dot One's board, the department listed in the order.

The legal result is a freeze. Property and interests in property of the designated persons that sit in the United States or in the hands of US persons are blocked and must be reported to the sanctions office. Entities owned half or more by one or more blocked persons are blocked as well. US persons are barred from transactions involving that property unless licensed, the release states.

The wider warning reaches beyond US borders. The order carries secondary sanctions exposure, which means a foreign exchange or bank that processes BitBank flows can itself be cut off from the US financial system even when no American touches the deal. That clause was described as the heavier part of the action for offshore venues that serve Iranian users, since the threat is loss of dollar access rather than a US court case.

One thing the order did not include was wallet addresses. The sanctions office has published bitcoin and Tron addresses in past crypto designations, including seven Tron wallets when it named Zedcex in January. Those strings are what compliance teams load into screening software, and this week's action named no such addresses, the report noted.

The BitBank order follows a run of Iran crypto actions. The US sanctioned exchanges Shelbit and Aban Tether in August over alleged sanctions evasion help for Tehran. In June it sanctioned four crypto exchanges including Nobitex, the country's largest. In July the US ordered the freezing of more than $130 million in USDT held in wallets linked to Iran, Cointelegraph recounted in its coverage of the new designations.

Tehran has looked for ways to soften the pressure. Earlier this month the Financial Times reported that Iran's central bank eased foreign currency controls to draw overseas earnings home, including through cryptocurrency, as US sanctions tightened. That account appeared in the Cointelegraph report on the BitBank action.

The department framed the designation as part of a mapped campaign. It said it has charted the networks, go-betweens and channels Iran uses to move oil, dodge sanctions and fund armed groups, and that it is working with partners in the US government, the European Union, Britain and Gulf states to close them. Treasury pointed readers to two compliance notes, FAQ 1250 and FAQ 1257, for sanctions risk tied to Iranian digital asset exchanges.

The order itself states the standard goal of sanctions. It says the aim is a change in behavior rather than punishment, and it points to the petition process for removal from the list. That process and the enforcement guidelines sit with the sanctions office while the blocked property stays frozen.