Iran’s Strait of Hormuz toll booth ran through a bitcoin exchange, U.S. says

HormuzSafe was developed by Iran's economy ministry and advertises insurance, traffic control and emergency response to vessels that pay. Shipping lawyers have called the arrangement a violation of transit rights under the Law of the Sea, the OFAC said.

A designation means BitBank's property in U.S. jurisdiction is frozen and Americans are barred from dealing with it. The heavier clause is the secondary sanctions tag attached to every name in Wednesday's action.

That extends the exposure to foreign firms: an exchange in Dubai or a bank in Istanbul that processes BitBank flows can itself be cut off from the U.S. financial system, without any American ever touching the transaction.

For offshore venues that take Iranian users, the threat is losing dollar access rather than facing a U.S. court.

Wednesday's action did not include a single wallet address, however. OFAC has published bitcoin and tron addresses in past crypto designations, including seven tron wallets when it named Zedcex in January, and those strings are what compliance teams actually load into screening software.