As if mocking US sanctions... '150 trillion won in virtual assets flowed into North Korea, Russia, Iran, etc.'

As if mocking US sanctions... '150 trillion won in virtual assets flowed into North Korea, Russia, Iran, etc.'

WSJ "Sanctioned addresses received over $100 billion last year"

Used for everything from purchasing drones and weapon parts to settling crude oil payments and paying crew salaries

It has been analyzed that Iran, Russia, North Korea, and others on the U.S. blacklist have significantly increased their use of virtual assets as a means to circumvent sanctions, with the amount exceeding 150 trillion won last year.

According to a report by the U.S. daily Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 4th (local time), blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimated that cryptocurrency addresses linked to sanctioned entities received over $100 billion (approximately 153 trillion won in Korean currency) last year.

This is nearly an eightfold increase compared to the previous year.

Analysts say that sanctioned countries are increasingly using virtual assets because it is difficult to verify the identity of transaction parties and they can bypass the existing banking system, which is central to Western sanctions.

Hamas, the Palestinian armed group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, has also been found to be soliciting virtual asset donations.

Hamas posted cryptocurrency donation guides on Telegram and other platforms, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed the specific methods they use to receive donations through informants.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is known to have used domestic and international cryptocurrency exchanges to receive payments for crude oil sold to China, its largest crude oil buyer.

Russia, too, has sophisticated its use of virtual assets to circumvent sanctions after being excluded from the international financial network following the war in Ukraine.

Promsvyazbank, a sanctioned Russian state-owned bank, and Ilan Shor, a Moldovan-born magnate, issued a ruble-pegged token called 'A7A5' last year and used it for overseas payments.

Evidence has also been found that funds exchanged from A7A5 into stablecoins were used for payments to a drone vendor in China.

This token is estimated to have processed over $90 billion in transaction volume last year alone.

Russia is also known to have used virtual assets to pay the salaries of sailors who smuggle sanctioned crude oil worldwide.

Western authorities also report that North Korea has been using cryptocurrencies stolen through cybercrimes such as hacking to purchase fuel and military equipment.

"Cryptocurrency has significantly changed the landscape of sanctions evasion," said Caitlin Martin, a senior intelligence analyst at Chainalysis.

The United States has also intensified its crackdown in recent years, seizing cryptocurrency wallets used by sanctioned countries and terrorist organizations, and sanctioning exchanges.

Last month, the U.S. sanctioned four Iranian exchanges, including Novitex, Iran's largest exchange, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. had seized $1 billion worth of virtual assets from Iran.

However, experts point out that it is not easy for sanctions authorities to block all of this because the virtual asset ecosystem is evolving rapidly and regulatory levels vary between countries.

Ari Redbord, head of policy at TRM Labs, which tracks Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges, analyzed, "The Iranian virtual asset platforms recently sanctioned by the U.S. are just the most visible strongholds," adding, "Toppling them does not dismantle the underlying structure."