Overview
- The Treasury added Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex to the Specially Designated Nationals list on Tuesday, blocking U.S. persons from dealing with them and freezing any U.S. property interests.
- OFAC named Nobitex executives, including chairman and co‑founder Amir Hossein Rad and two co‑founders tied to the Kharrazi family, and invoked E.O. 13224 and E.O. 13902 to increase penalties for counterparties.
- Treasury said Nobitex processed more than half of Iran’s digital‑asset inflows in 2025 and helped the Central Bank of Iran access hundreds of millions of dollars in stablecoins used to support the rial.
- The action builds on earlier on‑chain freezes such as Tether’s and is likely to push stablecoin issuers and compliant foreign exchanges to freeze or cut links to Nobitex‑linked wallets, which could block withdrawals for many Iranian users.
- Reporting and prior events — including a May Reuters probe and a $90 million hack in June 2025 — flagged Nobitex as a central node in Iran’s parallel crypto system, and analysts say the new individual listings mark a shift toward holding people, not just platforms, accountable.