US sanctions Iran’s biggest crypto exchanges, Treasury targets Nobitex Wallex Bitpin and Ramzinex over alleged IRGC financing, domestic on-ramps become the new choke point

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bnonews.com

The US Treasury has sanctioned Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges and several of their leaders, accusing them of helping the Iranian state and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps move money, evade sanctions and finance militant activity. According to BNO News, the designations name Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex, alongside individuals including Nobitex chairman and co-founder Amir Hossein Rad.

The move pushes Washington’s sanctions toolkit deeper into the plumbing of Iran’s domestic finance. Treasury officials argue these exchanges are not merely marketplaces but transit points linking Iranian users to stablecoins and offshore liquidity that can be routed through multiple jurisdictions. In the US account, Nobitex dominates this ecosystem: BNO reports Treasury saying it processed more than half of Iranian digital asset inflows in 2025, and that it helped Iran’s central bank access “hundreds of millions of dollars” in stablecoins to support the rial.

Sanctions on exchanges differ from sanctions on individual wallets or a handful of brokers: they aim at the interfaces where large numbers of ordinary users convert local currency into portable assets. That creates a predictable second-order effect. When a state targets the main on-ramps, it does not eliminate demand; it changes the price and the shape of the market—toward informal dealers, smaller platforms, and cross-border workarounds that are harder to monitor and easier to scam. The Treasury’s case file, as summarized by BNO, also ties Nobitex to ransomware actors linked to the IRGC, illustrating why US agencies treat crypto infrastructure as dual-use: the same rails that serve capital flight and household savings can also settle illicit payments.

The sanctions arrive with a public incentive for informants. The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program is offering up to $15 million for information leading to disruption of financial mechanisms used by the IRGC and its branches, BNO reports. That combination—asset blocks and cash rewards—signals that Washington expects the most actionable intelligence to come not from technical tracing alone but from insiders, counterparties and intermediaries who know which accounts, shells and payment corridors still work.

Rad is also linked to the resilience of the exchange sector itself. BNO reports Treasury saying he helped Nobitex reconstitute operations after a hack in June 2025 that stole $90 million. In practice, the US designations now test whether Iran’s biggest platforms can keep operating domestically while being pushed further out of the international financial system.

The sanctions block property under US jurisdiction and bar most dealings by US persons. The exchanges named are Iranian; the pressure point is whether their connections to global stablecoin liquidity and foreign counterparties are as replaceable as their websites.