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The U.S. Department of the Treasury is scrutinizing crypto platforms, not conscionable wallets, for enabling Iran’s sanctions evasion, according to TRM Labs’ Ari Redbord.
Feb 3, 2026, 7:57 p.m.
The U.S. Treasury Department is investigating if cryptocurrency platforms person enabled Iran officials to evade Western-imposed sanctions, Ari Redbord, planetary caput of argumentation astatine blockchain analytics steadfast TRM Labs, told CoinDesk.
Redbord said investigators are shifting enforcement distant from idiosyncratic integer wallets and toward crypto infrastructure,
“The interest is not simply that sanctioned actors utilized crypto, which is expected successful a comprehensively sanctioned economy,” Redbord said. “The interest is that the enactment appears concentrated done exchange-linked systems that relation arsenic repeatable fiscal entree points for sanctioned networks.”
Redbord said U.S. authorities absorption astir intimately erstwhile sanctions evasion efforts determination from isolated wallet enactment to what helium described arsenic service-layer infrastructure, including exchanges, stablecoin corridors, liquidity hubs and outgo rails.
One Iranian-linked illustration identified by TRM Labs is Zedcex, a cryptocurrency speech that the steadfast says operated arsenic infrastructure controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). According to TRM, the speech processed astir $1 cardinal successful funds linked to the IRGC, accounting for astir 56% of its full transaction volume, with that stock peaking astatine 87% successful 2024.
“This is nonstop grounds of a federation authorities histrion turning not to laundering crypto proceeds done a bid of wallet addresses, but to utilizing crypto infrastructure,” Redbord said.
Iran’s crypto transactions grew to up to $10 billion
The comments adhd item to increasing interest successful Washington implicit Iran’s expanding usage of integer assets. Iran’s crypto transaction volumes reached astir $8–10 cardinal past year, based connected on-chain enactment identified by TRM Labs and Chainalysis, arsenic some state-linked groups and retail users turned to integer currencies, Reuters reported.
Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned cryptocurrency exchanges for operating successful Iran’s fiscal assemblage for the archetypal time. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against Zedcex and Zedxion some registered successful the U.K. According to the Treasury's statement, the exchanges facilitated transactions for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the U.S. and its allies successful the European Union designate arsenic a violent organization. Since their registration successful 2022, conscionable 1 of these processed implicit $94 cardinal successful transactions, the Treasury said.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on Iran successful 2025, reinstating those related to the country's atomic programme that had been lifted successful 2015. It's not the lone state to edifice to crypto to circumvent restrictions. In aboriginal 2025, blockchain analytics supplier Chainalysis reported that U.S.-sanctioned countries had received astir $16 cardinal successful integer assets the twelvemonth before.
Chainalysis estimates that Iranian wallets received a grounds $7.8 cardinal successful 2025, up from $7.4 cardinal successful 2024 and $3.17 cardinal successful 2023. The steadfast estimates that astir fractional of Iran’s crypto volumes past twelvemonth were linked to the IRGC, a almighty military, governmental and economical unit intimately tied to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
By contrast, TRM Labs estimated that most Iran-linked crypto flows originate from retail users, reflecting efforts by mean Iranians to sphere savings, entree dollars and support connectivity to the planetary fiscal strategy arsenic the rial continues to weaken.
Government officials spell beyond opportunistic use
“For astir radical successful Iran, crypto remains chiefly astir access,” Redbord said. But helium said the threshold is crossed erstwhile state-linked actors determination beyond opportunistic usage and statesman relying connected crypto-native infrastructure designed to prolong sanctioned concern astatine scale.
Cryptocurrency wallets are pseudonymous and casual to create, limiting the effectiveness of sanctions that people idiosyncratic addresses, Redbord said.
“By the clip an code is sanctioned it has precise small operational value,” helium said. “Rebuilding functioning fiscal infrastructure is overmuch harder.”
Sanctions enforcement successful crypto, helium added, is astir effectual erstwhile it disrupts liquidity and entree alternatively than targeting azygous wallets. That includes identifying clusters of activity, mapping counterparties and exposing work providers that repeatedly facilitate the question of funds.
As blockchain networks progressively relation arsenic outgo and colony rails, Redbord said their usage by sanctioned states volition proceed to evolve.
“Lawful usage volition proceed to dominate,” helium said. “But blase authorities actors and nonrecreational sanctions evaders volition progressively run done specialized infrastructure built connected apical of those aforesaid rails.”
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