The U.S. Treasury Department is expanding sanctions pressure on Iran's crypto infrastructure: Shelbit and Aban Tether are under attack.
The U.S. Treasury continues its systematic crackdown on cryptocurrency channels used by Iran to circumvent financial restrictions. On Friday, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against two Iranian crypto exchanges — Shelbit and Aban Tether — as well as network operator Siavash Keyvanpour. This is another, but far from the last, step in the campaign to isolate Iran's financial sector.
According to my analysis of blockchain traffic, the scheme uncovered by OFAC looks quite telling. Addresses linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) transferred more than $1 million to the Shelbit exchange, while over $2 million returned to the Corps' own wallets. This is not about one-off transactions, but about an established infrastructure for money laundering.
Keyvanpour's scheme: shell companies and flows to Nobitex
Keyvanpour, who managed Shelbit from Georgia, created shell companies in Poland and the UAE. His wallets sent more than $2 million to Nobitex — Iran's largest crypto exchange, which was already blocked by OFAC in June. Notably, Shelbit also served as a channel for laundering tens of millions of dollars linked to a gambling network. In my earlier materials, I already pointed out suspicious volumes of transfers through Shelbit to Binance — the amount reached $676 million, clearly exceeding the scale of legitimate trading activity.
Aban Tether in the crosshairs: Executive Order No. 13902 and new realities
The second exchange, Aban Tether, processed multi-million-dollar payments through previously blocked services such as Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex. The Treasury cites Executive Order No. 13902, which targets companies in Iran's financial sector. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a strong statement in this regard: "With dollars, rials, or cryptocurrency — the Treasury will cut off any shadow financial networks."
It is important to emphasize that this is not a one-off action, but part of the "maximum pressure" strategy implemented through directive NSPM-2. Stablecoin issuers have already repeatedly frozen Iranian wallets promptly after they were added to sanctions lists, and the current situation is unlikely to be an exception.
My expert view: These measures signal that for regulators, cryptocurrency has ceased to be a "gray area" — it has become a full-fledged tool of financial intelligence. For market participants, this is a clear marker: any operations, even indirectly related to sanctioned jurisdictions, will be tracked and stopped. Iranian exchanges working with international partners should expect further liquidity compression and the departure of major players.