Community Trust ScoreLikely Real
CoinEx moved more than $3.84 billion through transactions tied to sanctioned Iranian entities over roughly seven years, per a TRM Labs investigation. The numbers are staggering — and they land just after the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control slapped fresh sanctions on four Iranian crypto exchanges.
The TRM Labs report zeroes in on Nobitex and BitPin as two of the most significant names caught in the net. Together, the sanctioned exchanges made up a meaningful slice of Iran’s estimated $10 billion in crypto activity in 2025. That figure alone tells you something: despite years of enforcement pressure, Iran’s crypto volumes haven’t collapsed. They’ve held up. CoinEx, for its part, launched in 2017 under founder Haipo Yang and has processed more than $79 billion in total trading volume since then. It’s a big platform — which makes the Iranian exposure numbers harder to dismiss.
The Nobitex link is the most striking piece.
CoinEx and Nobitex: $2.7 Billion and Counting
Since 2018, CoinEx and Nobitex traded more than $2.7 billion between them. That works out to roughly $1 million a day, on average — a steady, sustained flow that’s hard to write off as coincidental or incidental. And the direction of the money matters: Nobitex sent $360 million more to CoinEx than it received back. That gap basically means substantial sums were moving out of Iran and into CoinEx’s system, not the other way around.
TRM didn’t stop at Nobitex. The investigation traced connections between CoinEx and more than 60 Iranian crypto businesses, including Wallex and Ramzinex. Sixty-plus businesses. That’s not a handful of rogue transactions — it’s a web. The pattern reads less like isolated market activity and more like a coordinated network of fund movement.
Then there’s the Central Bank of Iran piece, which is probably the most alarming detail in the whole report. TRM found that around $67 million from the Central Bank of Iran reached CoinEx through a layered laundering network between June 2025 and June 2026. The mechanics were deliberately complex: cross-chain bridges, multiple blockchains, specific smart contract structures — all designed to obscure where the money started.
ViaBTC’s Role and the Nobitex Cyberattack
ViaBTC, the mining pool linked to CoinEx, isn’t off the hook either. TRM traced $154 million in transactions between ViaBTC and wallets connected to Iranian entities. Funds moved frequently from mining operations toward Iran. After a cyberattack hit Nobitex in 2025, previously dormant mining wallets woke up and sent $2.7 million to a fresh Nobitex wallet. ViaBTC’s fingerprints were on those transfers.
The geopolitical context matters here. When the U.S.-Iran-Israel conflict intensified in 2026, transaction behavior shifted noticeably. Transfer sizes grew. Larger individual transactions became more common. That kind of pattern — where amounts increase under pressure rather than disappear — suggests whoever was using the network adapted rather than stopped.
After OFAC’s sanctions landed, overall transaction volumes between CoinEx and Iranian entities did drop. But TRM flagged that private accounts could still be running activity that doesn’t show up cleanly on public blockchains. So the drop in visible volume probably doesn’t tell the whole story.
CoinEx’s exposure goes beyond Iran, too. TRM’s report tied the exchange’s blockchain activity to wallets connected to the IRGC, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah — three entities under heavy international sanctions. The platform also came up in connection with the CoinEx hack itself, BlackSuit ransomware, and the Wasabi mixing service. Each of those links adds another layer of complication to what CoinEx’s defenders would need to explain away.
CoinEx pushed back. The exchange denied any direct relationship with the Iranian government or sanctioned groups and said that blockchain transactions on their own don’t prove illegal conduct. That’s technically true as a legal argument — blockchain data shows movement, not intent. But TRM’s report isn’t just pointing at one or two transactions. It’s pointing at seven years, sixty-plus counterparties, and $3.84 billion.
The OFAC sanctions on Nobitex and BitPin are recent. Compliance teams at major exchanges are scrambling to map their own exposure. And with private accounts potentially keeping some flows alive off the public ledger, regulators are well aware that sanctions alone don’t fully seal the pipes.
TRM traced $154 million through ViaBTC to Iranian-linked wallets — and that’s just the mining pool side of the operation.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did CoinEx transact with Iranian entities according to TRM Labs?
TRM Labs found that CoinEx facilitated over $3.84 billion in transactions with sanctioned Iranian entities across more than seven years of activity.
What is the connection between CoinEx and Nobitex?
Since 2018, CoinEx and Nobitex exchanged more than $2.7 billion, averaging around $1 million per day, with Nobitex sending $360 million more to CoinEx than it received.
