Iran’s Strait of Hormuz toll booth ran through a bitcoin exchange, U.S. says

Iran’s Strait of Hormuz toll booth ran through a bitcoin exchange, U.S. says

Özet: Kripto piyasasında önemli gelişmeler yaşanıyor.

Iran has spent this year charging tankers between $1 million and $2 million to cross the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S.

Treasury said that since June, part of that money has moved through a cryptocurrency exchange in Tehran.

A Thursday release shows The Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated BitBank, a Tehran crypto exchange set up in 2024, alongwith Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, the software firm that built it.

“Today’s designations of Iranian digital asset infrastructure make perfectly clear that efforts to finance the Iranian regime using cryptocurrencies are not beyond OFAC’s reach,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The OFAC alleged BitBank moved hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the branch of Iran’s armed forces that controls much of the country’s economy and is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S.

Over the same period, Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority — the outfit Tehran uses to sell ships “safe passage” insurance, itself sanctioned on July 29 — began using BitBank to pass what it collected on to regime entities.

HormuzSafe was developed by Iran’s economy ministry and advertises insurance, traffic control and emergency response to vessels that pay.

Shipping lawyers have called the arrangement a violation of transit rights under the Law of the Sea, the OFAC said.

Read More: Iran may be turning the Strait of Hormuz into a bitcoin-based insurance market, local reports say A designation means BitBank’s property in U.S.

jurisdiction is frozen and Americans are barred from dealing with it.

Analiz: Piyasa hareketliliği devam ediyor.