US officials have added an Iranian digital asset platform to the sanctions list, saying it helped move large bitcoin payments tied to Tehran’s security apparatus.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced the designations on September 17, 2026, as part of Operation Economic Outcast, a broader campaign aimed at cutting off financial channels used by the Iranian government and its affiliates.
OFAC named BitBank as a priority digital-asset venture controlled by Babak Zanjani, an Iranian financier already on the US sanctions list.
Officials said Zanjani used the platform between June and July to arrange bitcoin transfers worth hundreds of millions of dollars that ultimately reached the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The same announcement said Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, which OFAC had already designated, has used BitBank since June to pass along payments it collected to Iranian authorities.
The package did not stop with the exchange.
Treasury also designated Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, which it identified as the developer of BitBank’s software and a subsidiary of Dot One Value Creation Group, another previously sanctioned firm.
Three people linked to Zanjani were listed as well: Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein, and Seyed Adel Heidari.
OFAC described them as central figures in Zanjani’s commercial and digital asset network.
Treasury framed the move as an attempt to dismantle infrastructure built to hide money flows and keep sanctioned actors connected to global markets.
Officials said Zanjani’s companies have operated as both visible commercial projects and quieter financial tools.
According to the department, Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein has been involved in much of that activity, including oil-related work and digital-asset deals that later reached the IRGC.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the designations show that cryptocurrency platforms used to finance the Iranian government are not beyond OFAC’s reach.
“If you support the Iranian regime, the Department of the Treasury will sanction you,” he said.
The State Department issued a companion statement, arguing that digital asset exchanges have given Iranian institutions a path into the international financial system and urging other governments and private firms to keep their platforms from being used that way.
The legal basis cited for the action is Executive Order 13902, which Treasury has used to target Iran’s digital-asset sector.
Designation typically requires US persons to block any property of the listed parties that comes under US jurisdiction.
Foreign firms that continue to deal with those parties can face secondary-sanctions risk.
BitBank itself has been identified as an Iran-based financial business launched in 2024 and associated with websites including bitbank.com and bitbank3.com.
The latest step follows earlier US actions against other Iranian exchanges and against Zanjani’s wider group of companies.
Washington presents the campaign as an effort to starve the IRGC and related institutions of hard-to-trace funds.
Critics of broad crypto sanctions argue that designations can also sweep in ordinary users and make it harder for Iranians to move money outside official banks. Treasury, for its part, says the focus is on platforms that allegedly served as pipelines for sanctioned payments rather than on digital assets as a technology.