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The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Iranian cryptocurrency exchange BitBank on Wednesday, accusing it of transferring hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps between June and July 2026. The action also hit BitBank's software developer and three associates of the exchange's controlling financier, extending Washington's enforcement sweep deeper into Iran's crypto infrastructure.

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The Scheme: Hormuz Tolls Paid in Bitcoin

BitBank sat at the center of a payment network tied to Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, a state-linked Iranian maritime insurance platform that was reportedly developed under Iran's Ministry of Economy and launched in May 2026.

Hormuz Safe charged ship operators premium fees, payable in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, for certified "safe passage" through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran projected the program would generate more than $10 billion in revenue, according to Iranian government projections.

Treasury had already sanctioned Hormuz Safe and Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company in late July 2026, calling the arrangement an extortion scheme funneling money to the IRGC. Wednesday's action names the exchange that processed those payments.

OFAC acted under Executive Order 13902, which targets Iran's digital asset sector specifically. The agency also designated Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, the firm that built BitBank's software and a subsidiary of Dot One Value Creation Group. In what compliance analysts describe as a notable shift, regulators are now sanctioning the developers who build crypto platforms, not just the platforms themselves.

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Zanjani Returns to the Picture

BitBank is described in the Treasury designation as a "priority digital asset venture" controlled by Babak Zanjani, an Iranian financier with a long sanctions history. Zanjani was sentenced to death in Iran in 2016 for embezzling from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), itself an OFAC-designated entity, but his sentence was commuted in 2024.

By 2025 he had re-emerged publicly, backing regime-aligned financial projects. OFAC first named his crypto network in January 2026, designating UK-registered exchanges Zedcex and Zedxion in what was the first time Iran sanctions had reached UK-domiciled crypto entities. A second wave in July 2026 caught nine more companies in his orbit. Wednesday's action designated three of his associates: Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein, and Seyed Adel Heidari.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the action in direct terms. "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," he said in the press release.

A concurrent Department of Justice civil forfeiture case, filed September 15, targets approximately $61 million in cryptocurrency that DOJ court filings allege was derived from Iranian oil sales and laundered through Binance. Binance had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

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Part of a Wider Campaign

Wednesday's designation is one piece of Operation Economic Outcast, a sanctions framework Bessent announced on August 24, 2026, also known as "Economic D-Day."

The operation explicitly names five sectors: digital assets, oil and gas, shipping, aviation, and gold. Prior moves under the campaign included the June 2026 designation of Iran's four largest exchanges: Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex. That action, which Chainalysis described as the largest-ever enforcement action targeting Iran's crypto sector, covered exchanges that collectively handled more than 50 percent of Iran's digital asset inflows in 2025.

Chainalysis data shows Iranian crypto outflows reached $4.18 billion in 2025, up 70 percent year over year, while state-driven sanctions evasion globally grew 694 percent over the same period, reflecting a global surge in state-level crypto sanctions evasion. Iran's total crypto ecosystem was sized at roughly $7.78 billion. Chainalysis has also reported that IRGC-linked wallets accounted for more than 50 percent of Iranian on-chain activity in the fourth quarter of 2025, a figure that lends scale to the IRGC-BitBank allegation at the center of Wednesday's designation.

Bessent has sustained this posture across multiple actions under the campaign. "Whether in dollars, rials, or crypto, Treasury will hunt down and dismantle illicit financial networks that keep the regime afloat," he said at the August 24 Operation Economic Outcast launch.

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What This Means for South Asia, the Gulf, and East Africa

The regional stakes are concrete. Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan sourced close to two-thirds of their LNG imports through the Strait of Hormuz in 2025.

Shipping operators servicing those routes were the direct targets of Hormuz Safe's Bitcoin premium system, with BitBank as the payment rail. Companies that paid those premiums could face retroactive compliance exposure, according to OFAC guidance, even if they did not know the funds were allegedly routed to the IRGC.

The designation of UAE-based entities in August's related action, including Crypto Home DMCC, NFT Home DMCC, and Shelbit General Trading LLC, signals that Gulf-domiciled exchanges are firmly within OFAC's scope. Many of those platforms serve South Asian diaspora communities and East African traders.

Peer-to-peer markets in Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, and India carry the highest concentration of risk, according to Chainalysis analysis: Iranian actors have historically shifted to P2P channels when centralized exchanges face restrictions, and those markets often operate without identity verification.

Bessent has warned explicitly that countries and institutions helping Iran could lose access to the dollar system, a threat that carries weight for regional banks and fintechs that maintain US dollar correspondent banking access, directly or through intermediaries.

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What Comes Next

China has not yet been designated despite being Iran's largest oil buyer, a gap that Al-Monitor has attributed to diplomatic sensitivity ahead of a Trump-Xi summit scheduled for September 24.

Whether Washington widens the campaign after September 24 will be closely watched by sanctions analysts and market participants.

For crypto businesses operating anywhere along the Gulf-to-South Asia corridor, Chainalysis and other compliance firms recommend auditing wallet exposure to the Zanjani, BitBank, and Hormuz Safe clusters. OFAC's wallet-level tracing has become granular enough that indirect exposure through OTC desks or P2P counterparties is no longer a theoretical risk.

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All sanctions designations are civil and administrative actions. The underlying allegations have not been adjudicated in a criminal court. BitBank, Babak Zanjani, and Iranian government officials had not issued public responses to the September 17 designations at the time of publication. The Department of Justice's allegations regarding Binance relate to civil forfeiture proceedings; Binance had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.