The U.S. Department of the Treasury, through OFAC, has recently intensified its economic pressure strategy by directly targeting Iranian crypto infrastructure. The platform BitBank has been officially sanctioned for its alleged role as a financial conduit for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to U.S. authorities, this entity reportedly facilitated the transfer of several hundred million dollars in Bitcoin. These funds are said to stem from a tax system imposed on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, where each passage could generate up to $2 million in cryptocurrencies for the regime.
At the heart of this network, Washington points to the responsibility of financier Babak Zanjani, a figure already well-known to intelligence services for his past activities serving the Iranian state. The sanctions target not only the BitBank platform but also its software developers and several senior executives within the Zanjani network. This move is part of the broader "Operation Economic Outcast," aimed at dismantling digital tools used to bypass traditional financial restrictions imposed on the country.
Beyond the blocking of BitBank, the U.S. government is sending a clear message on an international scale. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that any foreign entity—whether a financial institution or an exchange platform—interacting with Iranian crypto structures would now face secondary sanctions. The United States now considers, by extension, local crypto platforms as embargoed financial institutions, drastically complicating any commercial relationship between these actors and the rest of the global market.
This offensive marks a turning point in digital asset regulation, with Washington applying the same coercive rigor to blockchains as to traditional banks. For international crypto platforms, compliance is becoming a survival imperative. Now, the risk of being cut off from the U.S. financial system through mere association with an Iranian platform is pushing companies in the sector to drastically strengthen their screening policies, illustrating increased surveillance of decentralized finance by state authorities.