Overview
- Blockchain forensics reported by The Wall Street Journal and TRM Labs attribute about $3.84 billion in transfers between 2019 and 2026 to wallets linked to Iranian entities that passed through CoinEx.
- TRM identified a $67 million multi-chain laundering route tied to wallets linked to Iran’s central bank that reached CoinEx between June 2025 and June 2026.
- CoinEx has publicly denied knowingly facilitating sanctions evasion, stated it never had formal commercial ties to Iranian state actors, and said it is off-boarding Iran-linked accounts while expanding KYC, KYT, geo-blocking, IP restrictions, and transaction screening.
- The U.S. Treasury’s OFAC designated four Iranian crypto exchanges on June 2, 2026, and reported on-chain volumes and hot-wallet changes show CoinEx activity with Iranian platforms dropped sharply after those actions.
- Analysts caution the traced $3.84 billion is a lower-bound estimate because privacy tools, cross-chain bridges, decentralized swaps, and peer-to-peer trades can hide flows, and the rise of CoinEx followed Binance’s retreat from Iran after tighter compliance pressure.