The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned two crypto exchanges and an Iranian national over laundering at least $5 million in digital assets. According to the US Treasury, the funds supported Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Who Landed on the Sanctions List
OFAC announced sanctions against exchanges Shelbit and Aban Tether, which the agency says the Iranian regime relies on to launder billions of dollars. Both platforms were accused of facilitating illicit crypto activity and sanctions evasion during the ongoing military conflict between the US and Iran.
Alongside the exchanges, the list added Iranian national Siavash Kayvanpour along with wallets and companies tied to him. One of those companies, according to the agency, operates Shelbit.
OFAC sanctions in practice mean freezing assets under US jurisdiction and barring American persons and companies from doing business with the named exchanges, wallets, or individuals. Foreign firms that keep dealing with sanctioned entities anyway risk facing secondary sanctions of their own.
Where the Money Went
According to the US Treasury, wallets controlled by the Revolutionary Guard sent more than $1 million in crypto to addresses tied to Shelbit. Shelbit itself transferred $2 million in digital assets back to wallets controlled by the Guard.
Another $2 million in digital assets moved from wallets linked to Kayvanpour to Nobitex, an Iranian exchange the US added to its sanctions list back in June.
Cases like this usually rely on blockchain analytics. Firms such as TRM Labs track how funds move between wallets and help agencies like OFAC connect specific addresses to the people or organizations behind them.
Sanctions Pressure on Iran Keeps Building
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent commented on the decision.
"We will continue to increase the economic pressure. Whether in dollars, rials, or crypto, Treasury will hunt down and dismantle the illicit financial networks that keep the regime afloat."
- Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary, from a US Treasury statement, August 7, 2026
This isn't Washington's first move against Iran-linked crypto. The list of sanctioned entities grows almost every month, with each new round adding fresh exchanges, wallets, and names to an already long roster.
- In January 2026, exchanges Zedcex and Zedxio were sanctioned.
- In June 2026, the US froze $131 million in wallets tied to Iran.
- In June 2026, exchange Nobitex was added to the US sanctions list.
- In August 2026, new sanctions hit Shelbit, Aban Tether, and Siavash Kayvanpour.
Per the US Treasury, it's the combination of several such exchanges and wallets that lets the Iranian regime work around basic financial restrictions and keep funding military structures through digital assets.
What This Means for the Market
For crypto exchanges and exchange services, this string of sanctions means steadily tighter counterparty checks. The stablecoin USDT remains one of the most common tools in schemes like this because of its dollar peg and deep liquidity on over-the-counter desks, so addresses on that network draw the most monitoring.
In practice, that means ever more demanding compliance procedures for large exchanges: screening counterparty wallets, blocking suspicious transactions, and regularly updating internal address blacklists.
Regular users see no direct impact. Legal transactions involving Bitcoin and other assets continue unchanged, but exchangers and exchanges handling Iran-linked flows risk getting hit with sanctions far faster than before.
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