The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions on Iranian cryptocurrency exchange BitBank. The Treasury Department explained that the exchange processed payments for tolls from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars in transfers to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The exchange is owned by Babak Zanjani, an Iranian financier and OFAC-sanctioned individual. The sanctions include the exchange, BitBank's development company, and associates of Babak Zanjani. The sanctioned Iranian BitBank is a separate entity from the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank.
