US Sanctions BitBank and Its Iranian Affiliates
The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has added the digital asset platform BitBank to its sanctions list, stating that it is controlled by the sanctioned Iranian financier Babak Zanjani and is used to assist Tehran in evading sanctions. Also named in the sanctions are software developer Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, as well as Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein, and Seyed Adel Heidari.
The Treasury stated that from June to July, Zanjani transferred hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps via BitBank. Since June, the sanctioned Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority has been using this platform to transfer payments related to Hormuz to Iranian authorities. Pishtaz Simorgh is a subsidiary of the already named Dot One Value Creation Group. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that financing the Iranian regime with cryptocurrency is well within the office's reach.
This action falls under the "Economic Exile Operation," targeting Iran's digital asset sector under Executive Order 13902. Zanjani and his platforms Zedcex and Zedxion were sanctioned in January; his peripheral companies were targeted in July; and Iranian local exchanges like Nobitex were sanctioned in June. The State Department urges countries and crypto operators not to be used as international clearing channels by this regime.
The effect of the sanctions list is: freezing of assets controlled by Americans, and US entities are prohibited from transactions. On-chain addresses and the development company are added to the Specially Designated Nationals list, and exchanges and custodians that interact with these addresses face secondary risks. Hormuz transit fees have been recorded as cryptocurrency payments, making the Strait's passage itself part of the sanctions narrative.
In market mechanisms, this represents a sudden tightening of compliance radius: what is bought are channels that can prove the counterparty is not on Zanjani's network, and what is sold are liquidity from Iran-related channels, mixing services, and lesser-known exchanges. Beneficiaries are large exchanges that have established travel rules and sanctions screening; those under pressure are platforms providing exchanges for Strait settlements and shadow oil trade, as well as market makers who still consider "borderless on-chain" as a disclaimer. The movement of hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin indicates that the channels had already been used before being named.
Additionally, the Revolutionary Guard has been designated as a terrorist organization by multiple parties including the US and Europe; previously, Nobitex was accused of handling over half of Iran's digital asset inflows by 2025. The new list targets software developers along with the three executives, holding them accountable based on infrastructure rather than just exchange licenses.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Zanjani is not a new name. The January sanctions on exchanges, July sanctions on shell companies, and September sanctions on BitBank and its coding subsidiary are all part of the same network being peeled back layer by layer. After the Hormuz payment authority was named, transit fees shifted from fiat currency to Bitcoin bridges, and the Treasury is now targeting the bridge again. Bessent's statement that "crypto can also be targeted" is to prevent the market from viewing digital assets as Iran's second central bank.
Capital will not withdraw from Bitcoin itself, but will withdraw from "unknown Iranian channels." Compliance exchanges will increase their rejection rates for named addresses, mixing services, and Hormuz-related payments; shadow exchanges will change domain names and development entities. The fact that Pishtaz Simorgh can still emerge after Dot One was targeted indicates that sanctions are hitting nodes, and the network will regenerate. What is truly valuable is access to US dollars, not the on-chain transfers themselves.
In comparison to the disconnection from Iranian banks after 2018, the naming of Nobitex, and the blockade of Venezuela's oil cryptocurrency experiment. The industry phase is characterized by state-level actors treating crypto as parallel clearing, while regulators target developers and the three-person group as infrastructure. Once the Strait's insurance and transit fees are on-chain, geopolitical events will directly translate into on-chain addresses.
The structure belongs to a recalibration of clearing weights driven by regulatory changes. Places that cannot access dollar clearing will temporarily use Bitcoin as a bridge; once the bridge is designated as a Specially Designated National, liquidity on the bridge will first die. The mechanism is: sanctions do not require the confiscation of every coin, as long as licensed deposit channels dare not touch these addresses, hundreds of millions in channels will seek the next unnamed bridge on their own.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Crypto can bridge, but bridges can also be designated.
Targeting exchanges is not enough; the company writing the code must also be targeted.
Once the Strait's transit fees are on-chain, geopolitics will become on-chain addresses.