CoinEx Became Iran’s Crypto Gateway as Binance Stepped Back

CoinEx, a cryptocurrency exchange launched in Hong Kong in 2017 by former Tencent Weibo developer Haipo Yang and now headquartered in Seychelles, has processed more than $3.84 billion in transactions from wallets with identifiable links to Iran since 2019, according to blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs. The figure places the obscure offshore platform at the center of Iran’s cross-border crypto pipeline, a role that emerged after the world’s largest exchange walked away from it.

The pivot happened in plain sight. After Binance tightened sanctions compliance beginning in 2022, CoinEx replaced it as the largest foreign counterparty to Nobitex, Iran’s biggest crypto exchange. By 2025, more than $763 million had moved between the two, per TRM. CoinEx disputed TRM’s aggregation but its own figures still ranked it as Nobitex’s top foreign counterparty that year. The arrangement landed in the open on June 2, 2026, when the US Treasury sanctioned Nobitex and three other Iranian exchanges, naming Nobitex’s executives but leaving CoinEx itself off the blacklist.

How CoinEx Became Iran’s Biggest Foreign Counterparty

The pre-2022 setup was simple. Binance operated as the dominant foreign counterparty to Nobitex, routing the bulk of cross-border Iranian crypto flow before US enforcement caught up. In 2023 the Justice Department charged Binance with, among other things, allowing Iranian customers to use its platform, a case that ended in a guilty plea and a multi-billion-dollar penalty.

CoinEx was navigating its own US problem the same year. In February 2023, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the exchange for failing to register as a securities and commodities broker-dealer, a violation of the state’s Martin Act. CoinEx settled in June, agreeing to pay $1.8 million and exit New York. The settlement, captured in the the 2023 registration-failure case that pushed CoinEx out of New York, removed one regulator from CoinEx’s path and left the Iran side of the business to keep growing.

TRM’s analysis, reviewed by the Wall Street Journal and reproduced by LiveMint, found that more than $763 million moved between Nobitex and CoinEx in 2025. CoinEx called the methodology misleading and pointed to lower figures from another provider. Even so, the volume estimates CoinEx itself provided still ranked the exchange as Nobitex’s largest counterparty in 2025, a position visible in the the WSJ investigation tracking $3.84 billion through CoinEx.

Tracing the $3.84 Billion

The headline number comes from TRM Labs, the blockchain analytics firm US agencies have leaned on for Iran attribution work. TRM analyzed activity by crypto wallets it has tied to more than 60 Iranian entities and counted inflows and outflows through CoinEx addresses. Since 2019, the analysis says, $3.84 billion has passed through wallets hosted by CoinEx with identifiable links to Iran.

The trail of some of those funds cuts through the largest crypto heist on record. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center attributed the theft of approximately $1.5 billion in virtual assets from Dubai-based exchange Bybit, on or about February 21, 2025, to North Korean actors, in the the February 2025 attribution of the $1.5 billion Bybit hack. Blockchain investigators later found that portions of the stolen crypto ended up in two digital wallets controlled by the Central Bank of Iran. From those wallets, the funds moved through a maze of transactions, with CoinEx among the destinations.

Blockchain analytics firms use public ledger data, human sources, and behavioral indicators to map wallets, and their estimates vary. CoinEx called TRM’s aggregation misleading and said findings from any single analytics platform should not be treated as definitive. The volume estimates the exchange provided still ranked it as Nobitex’s largest counterparty in 2025.

Wallets the Exchange Says It Didn’t Touch

TRM’s data also turned up direct links between CoinEx-hosted wallets and individuals and entities later sanctioned by Washington.

Between 2022 and 2025, wallets hosted by CoinEx processed transactions for Alireza Derakhshan, an Iranian the US Treasury tied to an oil sales network it sanctioned last year. The exchange also moved funds with wallets attributed to Zedcex, an exchange registered to a central London office that TRM has connected to Babak Zanjani, an Iranian businessman who has publicly described himself as a strategist for the IRGC’s sanctions-evasion operations. The Treasury Department sanctioned Derakhshan’s network in 2025 and added Zedcex and Zanjani to its blacklist in January 2026, an enforcement action TRM documented in its the three-layer breakdown of Iran’s 2026 crypto enforcement.

The Wall Street Journal noted that the CoinEx-linked transactions occurred before those Treasury designations. A CoinEx spokesperson denied facilitating direct transactions on behalf of Iranian or sanctioned entities.

CoinEx wouldn’t accept any new Iran users and was removing prior Iranian users it could identify. The exchange took the new measures following the Nobitex sanctions after “realizing that the stakes were getting higher.”

The quote comes from CoinEx founder Haipo Yang in messages to the Wall Street Journal, the most concrete acknowledgment the exchange has given that its Iran-side exposure has become a liability.

Sizing Iran’s $9.9 Billion Crypto Market

Iran’s domestic crypto market is larger than any single enforcement action can address. TRM put Iran’s total attributed crypto volume in 2025 at $9.9 billion. Nobitex processed $4.7 billion of that, the largest single share in the country.

The other side is retail. Researchers have estimated that 13 percent of Iran’s population owns cryptocurrency, a market valued at between $8 billion and $10 billion in 2025. Digital assets are popular among Iranians protecting savings against the rial’s slide and among traders looking for profit, the Journal reported.

That retail demand is what brought CoinEx into Iran in the first place. Former employees told the Journal the exchange built a presence by recruiting users through business-development managers in the country. A CoinEx spokesperson said the company never established an office in Iran and denied knowingly hiring such personnel.

• $9.9 billion – Iran’s total attributed crypto volume in 2025 (TRM Labs)
• $4.7 billion – Nobitex’s 2025 volume (TRM Labs)
• $3.84 billion – Iran-linked wallet transactions through CoinEx since 2019 (TRM Labs)
• 13 percent – Share of Iran’s population that owns cryptocurrency
• $8 billion to $10 billion – Estimated size of Iran’s retail crypto market in 2025

The Enforcement Response, Layer by Layer

The Treasury Department’s sanctions architecture has moved in three waves in 2026, each aimed at a different structural layer of Iran’s crypto economy, per TRM Labs.

1. January 2026 – Treasury designates Zedcex and Zedxion, IRGC-linked stablecoin infrastructure; roughly USD 1 billion routed through the platforms.
2. April 2026 – Treasury designates two wallets as property of Iran’s Central Bank, with IRGC-Qods Force and Hezbollah linkages; Tether coordinates the freezing of USD 344 million in USDT.
3. June 2, 2026 – Treasury designates four Iranian domestic exchanges (Nobitex, Bit Pin, Wallex, and Ramzinex) under counterterrorism authority E.O. 13224 and E.O. 13902.

Of the four, Nobitex was the anchor. Treasury said the exchange processed more than 50 percent of all Iranian 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 named Nobitex chairman and co-founder Amir Hossein Rad, current CEO Seyed Ali Khoee, and two co-founders tied to the Kharrazi family, a dynasty married into the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in the June 2 designation of Iran’s four largest crypto exchanges.

CoinEx is not named in the June 2 designation. The exchange sits one layer up the stack: a foreign platform that, according to TRM, has served as the primary international counterparty to the now-sanctioned Nobitex, a position sketched in the June action that blacklisted Iran’s largest crypto exchange.

What CoinEx Says, and What It Is Now Changing

Yang told the Journal the platform had been “widely used by Iranians” but denied any relationship with the Iranian government. He said CoinEx runs a transaction-monitoring system, screens users for high-risk activity, and has begun blocking new registrations from Iranian IP addresses, a step confirmed in the WSJ investigation tracking $3.84 billion through CoinEx.

In the weeks since Treasury sanctioned Nobitex, Persian-language social-media accounts tied to CoinEx have told users the exchange is rolling out new customer identification procedures. Yang said the platform will remove prior Iranian users it can identify and that the Persian-language accounts will close, a cleanup he linked to “realizing that the stakes were getting higher” after the Nobitex sanctions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CoinEx?

A Seychelles-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange launched in Hong Kong in 2017 by Haipo Yang, a former Tencent Weibo developer who also founded the ViaBTC mining pool. CoinEx settled a 2023 New York attorney general lawsuit for $1.8 million and agreed to exit the US market.

How much Iranian-linked money has moved through CoinEx?

TRM Labs says wallets with identifiable links to Iran have moved more than $3.84 billion through CoinEx since 2019. CoinEx disputed the aggregation but its own figures still ranked it as Nobitex’s largest counterparty in 2025.

Why did CoinEx become Iran’s primary foreign crypto counterparty?

After Binance tightened sanctions compliance beginning in 2022, CoinEx replaced Binance as Nobitex’s largest foreign counterparty by 2024, the Journal reported.

What did Treasury do on June 2, 2026?

The Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Iran’s four largest domestic crypto exchanges: Nobitex, Bit Pin, Wallex, and Ramzinex. The action also named Nobitex executives, including chairman Amir Hossein Rad and current CEO Seyed Ali Khoee, plus two co-founders with ties to a family married into the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Has CoinEx itself been sanctioned?

No. As of the June 2 designations, CoinEx is not on Treasury’s sanctions list. Treasury’s action targeted the Iranian domestic exchanges; CoinEx sits one layer up as their primary international counterparty.

Yang said the Persian-language accounts will close. CoinEx has not published a timeline for the user removals or any further compliance changes.