The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control on June 3, 2026 designated Nobitex - Iran's largest digital asset exchange - alongside three other Iranian platforms, Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex, for facilitating terrorist financing, sanctions evasion, and providing financial support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The designations, announced this morning, were made under Executive Order 13224 - the counterterrorism authority - and E.O. 13902, which targets persons operating in Iran's financial sector. Together, the four exchanges accounted for roughly 72 percent of all Iranian digital asset inflows in 2025, according to OFAC's figures in the press release.
Four Exchanges, One Morning
Nobitex occupied a structural position in Iran's digital economy that made it the action's centerpiece. The exchange processed more than 50 percent of all Iranian digital asset inflows in 2025. OFAC found it had facilitated transactions linked to the IRGC - including wallets associated with IRGC-affiliated ransomware actors - and had allowed regime insiders to access international digital asset exchanges and evade sanctions across multiple jurisdictions.
The three remaining targets filled out the rest of the market. Wallex, Iran's second-largest exchange by volume, received 12 percent of all Iranian digital asset inflows in 2025 and processed transactions linked to the IRGC. Bitpin received 10 percent of those inflows and processed millions of dollars in transactions with IRGC links; its investors have also reportedly been connected to Iranian sanctions evasion efforts. Ramzinex, a Tehran-based exchange founded in 2018, processed more than $2.45 billion in total transactions, including for transactions tied to IRGC-linked entities and an Iranian government-backed financial institution.
OFAC designated Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex under E.O. 13902 for operating in Iran's financial sector. Nobitex received the additional E.O. 13224 designation for direct material support to the IRGC.
Stablecoins to Prop Up the Rial
The most structurally significant finding in the OFAC release concerns stablecoins. According to the filing, Nobitex helped the Central Bank of Iran access hundreds of millions of dollars in stablecoins to prop up the plummeting value of the Iranian rial. The disclosure is notable: it confirms the regime was using dollar-pegged crypto assets as a direct monetary intervention tool as the rial deteriorated under maximum-pressure sanctions. OFAC provided no breakdown by stablecoin issuer or denomination in this release.
Nobitex's role extended into active conflict. Following the commencement of U.S. combat operations in Iran, the exchange "played a role in protecting and moving assets and funds out of Iran to shield regime wealth despite internet blackouts," according to OFAC's statement. That it operated through disruption events designed to cut off Iranian communications underscored its function as a financial continuity tool for the regime, not merely a retail trading platform.
Executives Designated
OFAC individually designated four Nobitex leaders. Amir Hossein Rad, the exchange's chairman, co-founder, and former CEO, was designated under both E.O. 13224 and E.O. 13902. The OFAC filing notes that after Nobitex suffered a $90 million hack on June 18, 2025, Rad helped the company reconstitute its operations - operations that OFAC says continued to serve as a vehicle for regime sanctions evasion.
Two co-founders - Seyed Mohammad Ali Aghamir Mohammad Ali and Seyed Mohammad Aghamir Mohammad Ali - were designated under E.O. 13224. Both are members of the Kharrazi family, which OFAC identifies as part of Supreme Leader Khamenei's inner circle, placing the exchange's founding structure within the regime's political orbit. Current CEO Seyed Ali Khoee was also individually designated under E.O. 13224.
The individual designations freeze any U.S.-accessible assets and block U.S. persons from transacting with them. They also make it easier for OFAC to pursue secondary sanctions against foreign entities that continue doing business with Nobitex's leadership.
Enforcement Context
Tuesday's action sits inside a broader enforcement campaign. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement accompanying the release that Treasury would "continue to follow the money in support of Economic Fury, whether it is through the banking system or through digital assets." The release references nearly half a billion dollars in regime-linked cryptocurrency that has been frozen through the Economic Fury campaign to date.
The broader sweep is larger still. Bessent said last week that the U.S. has seized approximately $1 billion in crypto from Iranian exchanges since the enforcement campaign began - a figure that includes Tether's April freeze of $344.2 million in USDT linked to Iran's Central Bank.
That Tether action established the mechanism: stablecoin issuers blacklisting Iranian-linked wallets at U.S. request. Tuesday's OFAC designations give that mechanism statutory teeth. Any digital asset platform that continues processing transactions for the four newly sanctioned exchanges - or their designated executives - now faces secondary sanctions exposure.
The scale of today's sweep is without precedent in the Iran crypto enforcement record. Prior OFAC actions targeted individual exchanges or specific transaction networks. Hitting all four major Iranian retail crypto platforms simultaneously, alongside individual designations of senior executives tied to Khamenei's inner circle, signals a shift from surgical targeting to a structural shutdown of Iran's digital asset on-ramps.
OFAC's FAQ 1250 and FAQ 1257, updated alongside Tuesday's release, detail the compliance risk for any firm with potential exposure to Iranian digital asset flows.