CoinEx has emerged as the main crypto bridge for Iran: $3.8 billion in sanctions evasion
Analysts at the blockchain platform TRM Labs have uncovered a massive network of transactions between the CoinEx exchange and sanctioned Iranian entities. Over seven years, more than $3.84 billion passed through this platform. This is not about scattered deals, but a coordinated scheme involving over 60 Iranian platforms. This is a classic example of organized circumvention of international restrictions, not a natural market flow.
$2.7 billion of this amount came from CoinEx's interaction with Nobitex — Iran's largest local cryptocurrency exchange. The average daily transfer volume between them since 2018 has been about $1 million. By 2024, CoinEx had become Nobitex's main external counterparty, outpacing its nearest competitor by nearly nine times. Such a concentration of flows is an alarming signal for the global regulatory community.
The share of illegitimate transactions on CoinEx reaches almost 8%, which is radically higher than the standard threshold of 0.3% for exchanges complying with KYC/AML requirements. CoinEx-affiliated mining pool ViaBTC added another $154 million in "traced links" to Nobitex through mining payouts. Moreover, after the cyberattack by the Predatory Sparrow group in 2025, ViaBTC provided Nobitex with emergency liquidity, confirming that the CoinEx ecosystem has become critical for the survival of Iran's crypto economy.
Scheme Involving the Central Bank of Iran
Particular attention should be paid to the mechanism involving the Central Bank of Iran. About $67 million was sent to CoinEx addresses as part of a structured money laundering scheme that operated from June 2025 to June 2026. The Central Bank managed the infrastructure through the National Iranian Exchange (NIE) under a model internally called "National Tether."
The mechanism was standardized: NIE wallets received large deposits in USDT on the TRON network (often exceeding $5 million), split them into structured parts, transferred them through cross-chain bridges to Ethereum, where the funds entered Gnosis Safe multi-signature contracts and were converted into Aave protocol tokens. The assets were then split again and moved through bridges — and so on down the chain, until they were consolidated on CoinEx. This is a classic trace-obfuscation tactic characteristic of professional schemes.
CoinEx's direct connection to sanctioned entities is also confirmed by other data: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ($6 million), Palestinian Islamic Jihad ($374,000), and Hezbollah appear in the report. After OFAC sanctions were imposed on June 2, 2026, against Ramzinex, BitPin, Wallex, and Nobitex, volumes between CoinEx and Iranian exchanges collapsed below $150,000. But this is merely a temporary lull, not a solution to the problem.
Expert opinion: The scale, duration, and structure of CoinEx's ties to the sanctioned Iranian crypto ecosystem are not an accident, but a deliberate strategy. Without access to CoinEx's liquidity and infrastructure, Iranian platforms would lose one of their main pathways to global markets. The current decline in volumes after the sanctions is just a pause, not an end to the scheme. Regulators should expect new, even more sophisticated circumvention methods to emerge.