CoinEx Quietly Funneled $3.84B From Sanctioned Iran Wallets, TRM Says 🇮🇷💸

Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs has identified cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx as the primary external conduit for Iran-linked capital since 2019, tracing more than $3.84 billion in flows from wallets tied to over 60 sanctioned Iranian entities through the platform. Roughly $2.7 billion of that total moved between CoinEx and Nobitex, Iran's largest domestic cryptocurrency exchange, at an average rate of about $1 million per day since 2018, according to a Wednesday TRM Labs report. About 60 Iranian platforms were tied to the funds.

By 2024, CoinEx had become Nobitex's largest external counterpart, processing nearly nine times the volume of the next-largest exchange, a concentration TRM Labs called "inconsistent with independent market behaviour." Major Iranian domestic exchanges route between 5% and 10% of their trading volume through CoinEx, a uniformity the firm said points to a "coordinated arrangement rather than organic adoption." CoinEx's share of illicit transaction volume stands at nearly 8%, compared with a 0.3% threshold observed at compliant exchanges. Nobitex handled about 50% of Iran's crypto trading volume, according to a June 2 report by Chainalysis.

The findings land three weeks after the US Treasury sanctioned four Iranian crypto exchanges under its "Economic Fury" campaign. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said separately that the department has seized $1 billion in crypto from Iranian exchanges and wallets since the start of the war. CoinEx is not among the sanctioned entities. In January, the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned UK-registered Zedcex and Zedxion for use as front companies for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

CoinEx-affiliated mining pool ViaBTC accounted for an additional $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. In a statement published Thursday on X, CoinEx denied 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 disputed TRM Labs' interpretation of blockchain data, arguing that onchain fund flows do not demonstrate a platform's knowledge of or participation in illicit activity. In May, Nobitex was reportedly linked to members of a family with ties to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.