Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs has recently released a detailed report concluding that CoinEx has emerged as the dominant conduit linking Iran’s domestic cryptocurrency ecosystem to international markets. Through extensive on-chain tracing spanning more than seven years, TRM identified over $3.84 billion in verified transaction flows between CoinEx and more than 60 Iranian cryptocurrency platforms.
The analysis highlights a particularly close relationship with Nobitex, Iran’s largest domestic exchange.
Since late 2018, approximately $2.7 billion has moved between CoinEx and Nobitex-linked wallets across roughly 6.2 million transfers.
This equates to an average of about $1 million per day.
By 2024, CoinEx accounted for roughly 16.3 percent of Nobitex’s annual volume, making it the platform’s single largest external counterparty—nearly nine times larger than the next biggest named exchange.
TRM Labs observed consistent patterns across the Iranian market that point to more than organic adoption.
Nearly every major Iranian exchange routes between 5 and 15 percent of its total volume through CoinEx.
The sequential onboarding of platforms—beginning with Excoino and Nobitex in 2018, followed by Wallex, Ramzinex, and others in subsequent years—combined with this uniform volume distribution, suggests a structured integration rather than independent market behavior.
CoinEx’s affiliated mining pool, ViaBTC, has also played a notable role.
TRM Labs traced $154 million in mining payouts flowing into Nobitex-linked wallets through more than 4.47 million transfers since 2018.
In one instance following a 2025 cyber incident targeting Nobitex, ViaBTC reactivated dormant Bitcoin mining wallets and facilitated $2.7 million in liquidity restoration.
Additional flows include $67 million sent by Iran’s Central Bank between June 2025 and June 2026.
These transactions involved a multi-chain scheme primarily using USDT on the TRON network, with cross-chain bridges, multisignature wallets, and decentralized finance protocols employed to obscure origins.
TRM Labs’ data further shows elevated risk exposure.
CoinEx processed millions of dollars linked to entities designated by U.S. authorities, including wallets associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and designated terrorist organizations.
The exchange’s share of illicit transaction volume reached nearly 8 percent—substantially higher than the 0.3 percent typical of more compliant platforms.
Following US Treasury sanctions imposed in June 2026 on several major Iranian exchanges, including Nobitex, transaction volumes between these platforms and CoinEx declined sharply to below $150,000 in some cases.
TRM Labs notes that Iranian crypto activity overall remained significant, with annual volumes around $10 billion in 2025, and that some flows may have shifted to undisclosed channels.
The research report underscores how CoinEx’s scale, duration, and structural patterns within Iran’s sanctioned crypto environment distinguish it from typical exchange activity.
TRM Labs’ research findings are based on blockchain attribution, address clustering, and volume analysis across multiple networks. While CoinEx has publicly disputed characterizations of intentional facilitation and stated it maintains no commercial relationships with Iranian entities, the on-chain data presented by blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs provides a detailed view of the flows that have occurred.