Treasury Sanctions Crypto Exchange Behind Iran's Bitcoin Tolls on Hormuz Ships

In brief

• OFAC has designated BitBank, an Iranian exchange controlled by financier Babak Zanjani.
• Treasury says Zanjani used it to move hundreds of millions in Bitcoin to the IRGC between June and July.
• The Hormuz toll authority has been routing its payments through the exchange since June.

The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned BitBank, naming the Iranian exchange it says carried the Bitcoin that shipping companies paid for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Since June, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said, the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority has used BitBank to pass the payments it collects on to the Iranian regime. That authority was the body charging vessels in Bitcoin for transit rights, a scheme Treasury designated in July.

Between June and July, Treasury says, BitBank was used to move "hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin" to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

BitBank is controlled by Babak Zanjani, an Iranian financier OFAC designated in January. Sentenced to death in Iran in 2016 for embezzling from the National Iranian Oil Company, he had his sentence commuted in 2024 and resurfaced last year backing regime-linked ventures. Treasury says he has been advertising BitBank on his social media accounts since at least 2024.