Washington has intensified its financial chokehold on Tehran, with the Trump administration hitting Iran's leading digital currency trading platform with a wave of economic sanctions, CNN reported.
The targeted measures, rolled out on Tuesday, come as backchannel diplomatic initiatives have thus far failed to secure a peace treaty to halt the active military conflict between the United States and Iran.
The latest blacklist explicitly penalizes Nobitex, its chief executive officer, and three of its original co-founders, while simultaneously freezing the assets of three competing Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges.
According to a formal statement released by the US Department of the Treasury, Nobitex has been actively weaponized by state actors to subvert international blockades. Federal officials accused the platform of “facilitating payments tied to Iran’s terrorist activities, sanctions evasion efforts, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked transactions, including activity associated with IRGC-affiliated ransomware actors".
The Treasury Department further detailed that the exchange served as a crucial economic lifeline for the regime's collapsing domestic currency and elite inner circle.
“Nobitex also helped the Central Bank of Iran access hundreds of millions of dollars in stablecoins used to prop up the plummeting value of the Iranian rial, while enabling regime insiders to access international digital asset exchanges and evade sanctions across multiple jurisdictions," the Department said in a press release.
“Following the commencement of US combat operations in Iran, Nobitex played a role in protecting and moving assets and funds out of Iran to shield regime wealth despite internet blackouts".