The U.S. Treasury Department is investigating whether cryptocurrency platforms allowed Iranian officials to evade sanctions imposed by the West, Ari Redbord, global head of policy at blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs, told CoinDesk.
Redbord said investigators are moving away from individual digital wallets and toward crypto infrastructure,
“The concern is not simply that sanctioned actors used crypto, which is expected in a largely sanctioned economy,” Redbord said. “The problem is that the activity appears concentrated through exchange-related systems that function as repeatable financial access points for sanctioned networks.”
Redbord said U.S. authorities were focusing more closely as sanctions evasion efforts moved from isolated wallet activity to what it described as a services layer infrastructure, including exchanges, stablecoin corridors, liquidity centers and payment rails.
One Iran-related example identified by TRM Labs is Zedcex, a cryptocurrency exchange that the company says operates as infrastructure controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). According to TRM, the exchange has processed approximately $1 billion in IRGC-related funds, accounting for approximately 56% of its total trading volume, with this share peaking at 87% in 2024.
“This is direct evidence of a state actor moving not toward laundering crypto proceeds through a series of wallet addresses, but toward using crypto infrastructure,” Redbord said.
Iran’s Crypto Transactions Reached Up to $10 Billion
The comments add detail to Washington’s growing concern over Iran’s growing use of digital assets. Crypto trading volumes in Iran reached around $8 billion to $10 billion last year, based on on-chain activity identified by TRM Labs and Chainalysis, as state-linked groups and individual users shifted to digital currencies, Reuters reported.
Last week, the US Treasury Department sanctioned cryptocurrency exchanges for the first time for their operations in the Iranian financial sector. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against Zedcex and Zedxion, both registered in the United Kingdom. According to the Treasury statement, the exchanges facilitated transactions by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the United States and its European Union allies designate as a terrorist organization. Since registering in 2022, just one of them has processed more than $94 billion in transactions, Treasury said.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on Iran in 2025, reinstating those related to the country’s nuclear program that were lifted in 2015. It is not the only country to use crypto to circumvent restrictions. In early 2025, blockchain analytics provider Chainalysis reported that U.S.-sanctioned countries received nearly $16 billion in digital assets in the previous year.
Chainalysis estimates that Iranian wallets received a record $7.8 billion in 2025, up from $7.4 billion in 2024 and $3.17 billion in 2023. The company estimates that about half of Iran’s crypto volumes last year were linked to the IRGC, a powerful military, political and economic force with close ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In contrast, TRM Labs estimates that most Iran-related crypto flows come from retail users, reflecting efforts by ordinary Iranians to preserve their savings, access dollars, and maintain connectivity to the global financial system as the rial continues to weaken.
Government officials move beyond opportunistic use
“For most Iranians, crypto remains first and foremost about access,” Redbord said. But he said the threshold is crossed when state-linked actors move beyond opportunistic use and begin to rely on crypto-native infrastructure designed to support sanctioned financing at scale.
Cryptocurrency wallets are pseudonymous and easy to create, limiting the effectiveness of sanctions targeting individual addresses, Redbord said.
“By the time an address is sanctioned, it has very little operational value,” he said. “Rebuilding a functioning financial infrastructure is much more difficult. »
Crypto sanctions enforcement, he added, is most effective when it disrupts liquidity and access rather than targeting single wallets. This involves identifying groups of activities, mapping counterparties and exposing service providers who repeatedly facilitate the movement of funds.
As blockchain networks increasingly function as means of payment and settlement, Redbord said their use by sanctioned states will continue to evolve.
“Lawful use will continue to predominate,” he said. “But sophisticated state actors and professionals who evade sanctions will increasingly operate through specialized infrastructure built on top of these same rails. »
