According to estimates from TRM Labs and Chainalysis, Iranian crypto transaction volumes reached an estimated $8-10 billion last year, as both state-affiliated groups and private investors have turned to digital currencies.The U.S. Treasury Department is now investigating whether crypto platforms have allowed state-linked players to evade sanctions when they want to move money abroad, access hard currency or purchase goods, said Ari Redbord, global head of policy at U.S.-based blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs, who said he had direct knowledge of the Treasury Department’s concerns.A Treasury spokesman referred Reuters to a September statement announcing measures the ministry was taking against “shadow banking networks” supporting Iran, including those the ministry said were using crypto to evade sanctions.
Redbord did not identify any cryptocurrency platforms under investigation or where they were located.
TRM Labs estimates that there was about $10 billion in crypto activity in Iran last year, up from $11.4 billion in 2024. Chainalysis, another U.S. blockchain analytics company, said Iranian wallets received a record $7.8 billion in 2025, up from $7.4 billion in 2024 and $3.17 billion in 2023. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond. to email requests for comment on this article.Cryptocurrencies remain a small part of the global financial system, but their use is expected to increase in emerging markets with weak currencies, the International Monetary Fund said. Iran has effectively disconnected from the dollar-based system and has seen a rapid devaluation of its rial currency. According to the latest estimates from the US government’s Energy Information Administration, oil revenues remain by far the largest source of foreign exchange, worth $53 billion in 2023.
“The harder one puts pressure on the Iranian economy, the more prepared one can be to deal with the consequences, one of which is the increasing use of crypto,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Center for Finance and Security at British think tank Royal United Services Institute.
Iran has also faced a series of crises in the past year, including the 12-day war with Israel and US attacks on its nuclear facilities. A recent wave of anti-government protests and the government’s deadly crackdown in Tehran have prompted threats of further military action from US President Donald Trump and new investigations into Iranian finances.
Washington imposed new sanctions on Iran last month, including on 18 people it accused of being part of shadow banking networks of sanctioned Iranian financial institutions.
THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS OF IRAN
Crypto wallet addresses are pseudonymous – recorded on the blockchain as a series of letters and numbers – making it difficult to determine who is behind transactions or their locations. Researchers estimate crypto activity using data sources including web traffic and wallet addresses identified by countries such as the US and Israel as linked to sanctioned entities.
Obtaining a complete picture of Iranian crypto usage is virtually impossible, the researchers said. Estimates of the distribution between state-based volumes and retail volumes vary considerably.
Chainalysis estimates that 50% of Iranian volumes last year were linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a powerful political, military and economic force with close ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In contrast, TRM Labs estimates that 95% of Iran-linked flows come from private investors. Still, the company says it has identified more than 5,000 addresses that it labels as IRGC-linked and estimates that the Guards have moved $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency since 2023.
British blockchain research firm Elliptic said last month that the Central Bank of Iran, which like the IRGC is subject to international economic sanctions, had acquired at least $507 million worth of stablecoin USDT in 2025, in what Elliptic called a “sophisticated strategy to bypass the global banking system.”
Iran’s UN mission did not respond to questions about the alleged use of crypto by the IRGC or the central bank. Reuters could not independently verify the findings of Elliptic and other blockchain researchers.
Tether, which issues USDT, said it has a “zero tolerance policy toward the criminal use of our tokens,” and that it was working closely with law enforcement agencies to identify and freeze funds linked to illegal activities.
Andrew Fierman, head of national security intelligence at Chainalysis, said that when a crypto wallet is publicly identified or sanctioned, owners can easily create new ones to use instead, complicating the job of US authorities.
RUSI’s Keatinge said the scale of the challenge facing US authorities is enormous.
“It would take significant resources to do the kind of blockchain tracing and so on to issue the sanctions,” he added. “It’s the ultimate high-speed whack-a-mole game.”
15 MILLION CRYPTO USERS IN IRAN
Ordinary Iranians, meanwhile, may be buying crypto because of the rapid devaluation of the rial, the researchers told Reuters. Crypto activity rose sharply last year during periods of social and geopolitical instability, including during the recent protests, until the government blocked the internet on January 8, the analysts added, citing activity on Iranian exchanges.
Nobitex, the largest Iranian crypto exchange, told Reuters that about 15 million people in Iran had some exposure or were using crypto assets, based on industry estimates. It said it had 11 million customers, with the majority of business coming from private individuals and smaller investors. “For many users, crypto primarily acts as a store of value in response to the ongoing depreciation of the local currency,” Nobitex said in an email.
Iranians can move money from local exchanges to wallets and platforms elsewhere, say blockchain researchers and financial experts.
Singapore-based blockchain researchers Nansen said some Iranians had withdrawn money from Nobitex in 2025, with balances of major cryptocurrencies falling sharply from a mid-year peak. Nobitex was hit by an anti-Iranian hacking group in June last year.
Nansen said it had identified hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency transferred from Nobitex to international cryptocurrency exchanges.
“These funds didn’t just leave crypto. Instead, they increasingly moved to international exchanges,” says analyst Nicolai Sondergaard. “Overall, the data suggests that crypto in Iran acted as a slow, structural exit route through 2025.”
Nobitex said some customers may use crypto to transfer money internationally, but that it has not tracked the destination or purpose of such transactions. The exchange says it protects user assets through robust monitoring of activities, including checks to identify potentially suspicious transactions. It said it was understandable that some users were concerned about the security of assets after the June hack.
“In many cases, users are taking the precaution of transferring assets to wallets they control (and not to other international exchanges), giving them time to assess the situation and determine whether they need to re-deposit funds at a later date,” Nobitex added.
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