- The U.S. Treasury Department has, for the first time, sanctioned entire cryptocurrency exchanges under Iran-specific financial sanctions.
- The sanctioned platforms, Zedcex and Zedxion, are alleged to have processed over $94 billion and facilitated funds for the terrorist-designated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
- The sanctions follow a broader crackdown after Iran’s suppression of internal protests and revelations that the Central Bank of Iran bought over $500 million in USDT to manipulate markets.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has, for the first time, imposed sanctions on entire cryptocurrency exchanges for their role in Iran’s financial sector. This unprecedented move targets Zedcex and Zedxion as part of a wider U.S. response to the Iranian regime’s brutal suppression of an internal uprising.
According to the Treasury’s statement, these platforms facilitated transactions for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the U.S. and its allies designate as a terrorist organization. Consequently, one of the exchanges processed over $94 billion in transactions since its 2022 registration.
The two platforms are also linked to Iranian businessman Babak Morteza Zanjani, who was convicted of embezzling billions. Meanwhile, this action marks a significant shift in OFAC’s approach to crypto-related sanctions.
Previously, the agency had only targeted individual wallet addresses or technology providers. However, it has now utilized Iran-specific authorities to blacklist entire exchange entities, a report from the Treasury shows.
The designation freezes all U.S.-linked assets of the exchanges and prohibits Americans from dealing with them. This crackdown follows findings that the Central Bank of Iran bought over $500 million of Tether’s USDT stablecoin to manipulate foreign exchange markets.
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