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The U.S. Department of the Treasury has accused Iran of using Bitcoin to collect payments from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. According to U.S. authorities, at least since June, some of these transactions have been processed by the Tehran-based cryptocurrency exchange BitBank.
Iran collected between one and two million dollars from each ship under the guise of insurance, traffic management, and emergency assistance. The funds collected, the Treasury Department claims, were funneled to state-affiliated entities.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also accused BitBank of transferring hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin directly to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—an elite military unit subject to international sanctions.
The U.S. imposed sanctions against the exchange itself and Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, which developed software for it. Their assets within U.S. jurisdiction have been frozen, and U.S. citizens are prohibited from conducting any transactions with them.
The sanctions list also includes secondary restrictions: foreign banks and crypto exchanges that facilitate BitBank’s financial flows risk losing access to the U.S. financial system. Despite the scope of the allegations, OFAC has not disclosed any cryptocurrency addresses linked to this scheme.