The United States has sanctioned two Iranian cryptocurrency trading platforms, accusing them of assisting in evading sanctions.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against two Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges, Shelbit and Aban Tether, expanding the Trump administration’s "Economic Fury" campaign targeting Iran’s financial networks. The Treasury accuses the two platforms of being used for large-scale crypto asset transfers, evading U.S. sanctions, and supporting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other entities designated by the U.S. as terrorist organizations. OFAC also sanctioned Shelbit operator Siavash Kayvanpour and multiple companies he controls in Georgia, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates. The Treasury noted that IRGC-linked wallets sent over $1 million in crypto assets to Shelbit and received more than $2 million from the exchange. Additionally, wallets linked to Kayvanpour are alleged to have transferred more than $2 million to Nobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange. The Treasury said Shelbit also serviced a network of over 2,000 gambling websites suspected of laundering tens of millions of dollars via crypto assets. Ahead of the sanctions, Reuters reported an investigation finding Shelbit processed at least $4 billion in transactions over the past two years, involving Iran’s gambling network, the Central Bank of Iran, and IRGC-linked entities. Data shows Shelbit-linked wallets transferred at least $676 million to Binance, with roughly $540 million of that amount coming after the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) penalized Shelbit for operating without a license. In addition, OFAC also sanctioned Iranian exchange Aban Tether, alleging it processed millions of dollars in transactions involving Nobitex and previously sanctioned platforms including Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex.