Inside Nobitex: U.S. slaps sanctions on 4 Iranian crypto exchanges with $7.7 billion in turnover

U.S. authorities have carried out a major study of Iran's cryptocurrency infrastructure to prepare their next blow. American intelligence services have managed to uncover detailed information about how Iran's cryptocurrency exchanges operate and who controls them. GetBlock AML Research breaks down the new findings on Iran's trading platforms and the restrictions imposed against them.

Key points:

• On June 2, 2026, the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on four Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges — Nobitex, Bit Pin, Wallex, and Ramzinex. The restrictions were applied under Executive Orders 13224 and 13902. This is already the third separate set of sanctions targeting Iran's cryptocurrency infrastructure in the past five months.
• These four platforms handled around $7.7 billion in cryptocurrency transactions — roughly 78% of all cryptocurrency activity tied to Iran in 2025. The total volume of such operations for the year is estimated at $9.9 billion.
• The new sanctions affect more than just American companies and citizens. Under Executive Order 13902, foreign banks and financial institutions that continue to process significant transactions through these exchanges risk losing access to the international banking system and may themselves be hit with U.S. sanctions.
• Despite years of sanctions pressure, the volume of cryptocurrency activity linked to Iran has remained relatively stable at around $10 billion per year. At the same time, parts of the infrastructure tied to Iran's digital asset market have so far escaped restrictions.

Three waves of U.S. sanctions against Iran's crypto infrastructure in 5 months

In 2025, the volume of cryptocurrency operations linked to Iran reached roughly $9.9 billion — despite the country having been under heavy international sanctions for more than a decade.

Since the start of this year, U.S. authorities have rolled out three separate sanctions campaigns, each targeting a different part of the system.

In January, sanctions were imposed on the Zedcex and Zedxion platforms. They served as the infrastructure for handling stablecoins — digital assets whose value is typically pegged to the U.S. dollar. According to U.S. authorities, around $1 billion passed through these platforms, which were tied to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

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In April, OFAC added to the sanctions lists two cryptocurrency wallets that U.S. authorities believe belong to the Central Bank of Iran. According to investigators, they were also linked to the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. At the same time, $344 million in USDT digital currency was frozen.

The latest sanctions package targets Nobitex, Bit Pin, Wallex, and Ramzinex — the exchanges through which Iranian residents access dollar-denominated assets and carry out international transfers.

These four platforms alone handled some $7.7 billion in transactions — 78% of Iran's total cryptocurrency market in 2025. Nobitex by itself accounted for more than half of all digital asset inflows into the country over that period.

How Nobitex, Bit Pin, Wallex, and Ramzinex differ from the Iranian central bank's wallets

Not all cryptocurrency services in Iran serve the same purpose.

The Central Bank wallets sanctioned in April were used as a kind of digital vault for state reserves. They were designed to accumulate funds and were rarely used for day-to-day operations.

Zedcex and Zedxion, by contrast, were tied to structures within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and handled specific financial flows linked to state interests.

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Nobitex, Bit Pin, Wallex, and Ramzinex serve a different function. These platforms let ordinary citizens and businesses buy digital assets pegged to the U.S. dollar, transfer funds abroad, and carry out international settlements. According to U.S. authorities, however, their services were used not only by private individuals but also by state-linked entities.

That is why the new sanctions target not specific accounts or users, but the infrastructure through which the financial flows themselves move.

According to available data, around $4.7 billion in transactions passed through Nobitex in 2025. Wallex handled roughly $1.45 billion. Bit Pin processed around $821 million, and Ramzinex around $739 million. All four exchanges together account for millions of addresses across the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and TRON networks.

What the sanctions on Iranian crypto exchanges mean for foreign banks

The new restrictions significantly broaden the range of organizations that need to factor in sanctions risk.

Any bank, payment service, or financial company with even indirect ties to these exchanges is now required to conduct additional checks and take steps to mitigate the risks.

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In its accompanying guidance, OFAC made a point of noting that the sanctions also apply to foreign market participants. That means non-U.S. banks and financial institutions processing significant transactions through Nobitex, Bit Pin, Wallex, or Ramzinex could face restrictions on their access to U.S. correspondent accounts or be hit with sanctions themselves.

Provisions of the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act also come into effect, mandating sanctions for large-scale transactions with entities included in Iran's sanctions lists.

In effect, the restrictions on cryptocurrency exchanges create far greater obligations and risks for international financial institutions than the simple addition of individual cryptocurrency addresses to a sanctions list.

Seyed Mohammad Aghamir: how the Nobitex leadership is linked to Iran's authorities

In July 2025, researchers established that Seyed Mohammad Aghamir held the position of head of blockchain operations at the Nobitex exchange and had ties to Iranian state structures.

A later investigation published by Reuters in May 2026 confirmed that the Aghamir brothers are connected to the Kharrazi family — a powerful political dynasty linked through marriage to all three of the Islamic Republic of Iran's supreme leaders.

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Additional details came to light following the massive hack of Nobitex carried out in June 2025 by the Predatory Sparrow group. The resulting leak of the source code revealed that Aghamir was the author and lead developer of the software responsible for screening cryptocurrency wallet addresses on the exchange.

This system is used to vet every address that users send funds to or receive funds from across the exchange's supported blockchains. According to the leaked data, Aghamir updated this component at least 17 times between 2022 and 2024.

The published materials also show that the changes were signed off using Nobitex's corporate email address, his personal Gmail account, and his account at Sharif University of Technology.

In addition, several access keys to the API endpoints used in the exchange's operational infrastructure were registered to Aghamir's personal accounts. That means part of Nobitex's transaction monitoring system was running on infrastructure that was under his personal control.

The published OFAC sanctions decision names both of the Aghamir brothers, current Nobitex CEO Seyed Ali Khoei, board chairman Amir Hossein Rad, and the company's official legal name — Rahkar Fanavari Nooyan.