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- BitBank is the latest crypto target under Operation Economic Outcast.
- The exchange was also tied to payments from Hormuz Safe.
- OFAC did not publish a BitBank wallet blacklist.
- Iran’s BitBank is unrelated to Japan’s bitbank.
The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned Iranian crypto exchange BitBank, alleging that a network controlled by financier Babak Zanjani used the platform to move hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and process payments collected through Iran’s Strait of Hormuz maritime system.
The September 17 action puts crypto infrastructure directly inside Operation Economic Outcast, Washington’s broader campaign against financial channels used by Iran. It also presents an unusual problem for crypto compliance teams: OFAC identified the companies and people behind the network without publishing cryptocurrency addresses that platforms could immediately add to their screening systems.
One Network Connected Bitcoin and Hormuz Payments
Treasury describes BitBank as a digital-asset venture controlled by Zanjani, an Iranian businessman already subject to U.S. sanctions.
According to OFAC, Zanjani used BitBank between June and July 2026 to facilitate the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin to the IRGC. Treasury did not disclose a precise transaction total.
The exchange was simultaneously connected to another source of funds.
Treasury said the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority has used BitBank since June to transfer payments it received to the Iranian government. Hormuz Safe had already been sanctioned by OFAC on July 29, 2026, alongside Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company.
Treasury alleges the two companies formed part of an IRGC-backed system requiring commercial vessels to purchase maritime coverage to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Hormuz Safe advertises insurance, traffic control, security and emergency-response services and accepts Bitcoin and other digital assets. The U.S. government characterizes the arrangement as an extortion scheme, which represents Treasury’s assessment of the network.
Who Was Targeted?
The September action extended beyond BitBank itself into the software and management structure surrounding the exchange. Treasury designated BitBank and its developer, Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, alongside three senior figures connected with Zanjani’s Dot One network.
Hormuz Safe is connected to the case but was not newly sanctioned on September 17. OFAC designated it on July 29, 2026.
The structure is significant because Treasury is targeting more than a venue where transactions occurred. It is mapping the business infrastructure supporting the exchange, including its software provider and executives.
TRM Labs said the action expands an investigation that initially identified roughly $1 billion in IRGC-linked activity through Zedcex and Zedxion, two other exchanges connected with Zanjani, before investigators moved into the wider corporate and payments network.
This Is Not Japan’s bitbank
The name creates an important potential source of confusion.
The Iranian BitBank sanctioned by OFAC is completely separate from bitbank, Inc., the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange.
According to information shared by Binance, Japan’s bitbank issued a statement on September 18 explicitly confirming that the OFAC-designated Iranian BitBank is a different legal entity and service.
That distinction is particularly important for search results and compliance screening, where matching a company name without verifying its jurisdiction and legal identity can generate false positives.
Japan’s bitbank clarification
No Wallet List Makes Screening More Complicated
The September 17 designation identifies BitBank, its software developer and associated executives, but Treasury’s announcement does not provide cryptocurrency addresses attributed to BitBank.
That changes the operational task for compliance teams.
When OFAC supplies a wallet address, exchanges can incorporate it directly into transaction screening. Without one, investigators first have to establish the link between the sanctioned legal entity and its blockchain infrastructure.
That process can combine KYC and counterparty information with transaction-pattern analysis and deposit-address clustering. Exchange infrastructure often consolidates customer deposits into a smaller number of operational wallets, allowing investigators to map related flows once a reliable starting address has been attributed.
Other legally obtained offchain signals can strengthen the assessment, but they should not be treated as proof on their own. Blockchain proximity does not establish common ownership, so attribution generally requires corroborating evidence before an address can confidently be associated with a sanctioned entity.
This is where Bitcoin creates an unusual enforcement dynamic. Its ledger preserves transaction history, but the blockchain does not reveal the legal identity controlling an address.
For BitBank, OFAC has effectively supplied the entity map before the wallet map.
BitBank Expands Operation Economic Outcast Into Crypto
The action also fits into a broader U.S. campaign rather than standing as an isolated crypto enforcement case.
Treasury’s September 17 release explicitly places the designation under Operation Economic Outcast and says the expanded use of Executive Order 13902 gives the department additional authority to pursue sanctions evasion through digital assets. Treasury said it intends to target not only Iran’s digital-asset ecosystem but international actors facilitating it.
The BitBank case also follows earlier action against Zanjani’s crypto network. In February, Treasury designated Zanjani alongside Zedcex and Zedxion, noting that addresses attributed to the two exchanges had processed funds for IRGC-linked wallets.
The enforcement perimeter is therefore moving beyond individual wallets toward the infrastructure surrounding crypto flows, including exchanges, developers, executives and corporate networks.
That approach increasingly resembles sanctions enforcement in traditional finance. Authorities identify an intermediary, map the entities controlling or supporting it, restrict access to the U.S. financial system and put counterparties on notice about the risks of continuing to transact with the network.
The difference is that some of the underlying financial trail remains permanently visible onchain.
The Next Test Is Onchain Isolation
The designation tells international platforms which legal entities have been sanctioned. It does not yet provide every blockchain address that may belong to them.
That makes the next phase measurable.
The key indicators will be whether OFAC subsequently identifies BitBank-linked wallets, whether blockchain intelligence providers attribute additional addresses to the network, and whether international exchanges detect and restrict subsequent flows.
Those developments will show how quickly an entity-level sanction can translate into practical onchain isolation when regulators identify the organization before publishing its wallet infrastructure.
Bitcoin can remove some of the intermediaries found in conventional cross-border payments, but it does not eliminate the need to interact with exchanges, liquidity providers and other parts of the wider crypto economy. In the BitBank case, the difficult part is therefore not seeing that money moved. It is establishing with sufficient confidence who controlled the addresses that moved it.
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