CoinEx denies knowing Iran, but $3.84B says otherwise 🧾

Wallets linked to sanctioned Iranian entities have routed more than $3.84 billion through cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx since 2019, blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs said in a Wednesday report, identifying the platform as a primary channel for evading US economic restrictions. Roughly 60 Iranian platforms were tied to the funds, and $2.7 billion of that total moved between CoinEx and Nobitex, Iran's largest domestic cryptocurrency exchange, at an average of about $1 million per day since 2018, according to TRM Labs. By 2024, CoinEx had become Nobitex's largest external counterpart, nearly nine times the next-largest exchange, a pattern TRM Labs described as "inconsistent with independent market behaviour."

The report arrives three weeks after the US Treasury sanctioned four Iranian crypto exchanges as part of its "Economic Fury" campaign. Days earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department had seized $1 billion in crypto from Iranian exchanges and wallets since the start of the war. In a statement published Thursday on X, CoinEx denied maintaining any commercial relationship with the Iranian government or domestic Iranian exchanges and said it has never provided funding channels to sanctioned parties. The exchange also pushed back on TRM Labs' interpretation of blockchain data, arguing that onchain fund flows do not prove a platform's knowledge of or involvement in illicit activity.

TRM Labs reported that the largest Iranian domestic exchanges route about 5% to 10% of their trading volume through CoinEx, which it characterized as a "coordinated arrangement rather than organic adoption." CoinEx's share of illicit transaction volume stands at nearly 8%, well above the 0.3% baseline observed at other compliant exchanges, according to the firm. CoinEx-affiliated mining pool ViaBTC added another $154 million in traced exposure to Nobitex through mining payouts and supplied emergency liquidity to Nobitex following Predatory Sparrow's $90 million hack in June 2025. Cointelegraph reached out to ViaBTC for comment on TRM Labs' findings but had not received a response by publication.

Nobitex processed about 50% of Iran's crypto trading volume, blockchain forensics platform Chainalysis said in a June 2 report, and in May was reportedly linked to members of a family with ties to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In January, the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned UK-registered Zedcex and Zedxion for serving as front companies for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Treasury previously announced the seizure of $344 million in crypto connected to Iran, bringing combined enforcement actions tied to the country into the billions.