OFAC designates BitBank: what the 17 September Treasury release says about bitcoin, the IRGC and the Strait of Hormuz, and what it does not

A sanctions designation is a legal act with a paper trail: a press release, a listing, an executive order cited as authority. It is also an allegation, made by a government, that has not been tested in a court. Both of those things are true at once, and a documentary reading has to hold both. On 17 September 2026 the US Department of the Treasury published a release titled "Operation Economic Outcast Disrupts Digital Asset Exchange Enabling the Iranian Regime". This article sets out what that release states, in its own words where we have them, and marks where the text stops.

According to the release, the Office of Foreign Assets Control designated BitBank, described as a digital-assets exchange; Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, described as BitBank's developer; and three individuals: Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, described as an executive; Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein, described as the chief executive of Pishtaz Simorgh; and Seyed Adel Heidari, described as vice chairman of an entity named Dot One. The release links all of them to Babak Zanjani, an Iranian financier who was already on OFAC's list before this action.

The legal authority cited is Executive Order 13902. The release frames the action as part of "Operation Economic Outcast", which it says was announced on 24 August 2026 and describes as the administration's economic campaign against Iran and the parties that support it.

The central sentence is this: "Between June and July of this year, Zanjani utilized BitBank to facilitate the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin to the IRGC." IRGC is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is itself a designated entity under US law.

The release adds two further elements. It states that Zanjani has promoted BitBank on social media since at least 2024. And it states that the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, which it describes as an OFAC-designated entity, has used BitBank from June onward to transfer payments it received to the Iranian government. Reporting by The Block on the same day describes Hormuz Safe as a bitcoin-settled insurance platform covering ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz; that description comes from the news outlet's own reporting and from the earlier designation of Hormuz Safe, not from the sentence in this release, and we mark it as such.

The Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, is quoted: "Today's designations of Iranian digital asset infrastructure make perfectly clear that efforts to finance the Iranian regime using cryptocurrencies are not beyond OFAC's reach." The release also carries his warning: "If you support the Iranian regime, the Department of the Treasury will sanction you."

Three consequences follow from an OFAC designation, and none of them depends on the technology involved. Property and interests in property of the designated persons that are in the United States, or in the possession of US persons, are blocked. US persons are generally prohibited from transacting with them. And non-US persons who provide material support to them risk secondary designation. For a digital-asset exchange the practical consequence is the compliance screening run by other exchanges, custodians and analytics firms: addresses associated with a listed entity are typically added to blocklists, and counterparties that touch them face their own reporting duties. The release does not list specific wallet addresses in the summary we read; OFAC's list entries often do, and readers who need them should consult the Specially Designated Nationals list directly rather than this article.

The amount is stated as "hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin" over June and July; no figure, no transaction count and no address is given in the release text we read. The route by which Hormuz Safe's receipts became "payments to the Iranian regime" is asserted, not itemised. The release is a statement of the government's findings; it is not a court judgment, and the designated parties have not, in the material we read, responded. None of this makes the release less useful as a document. It makes it a document of a particular kind, and the kind should be named.

It is also worth stating what the release does not say about bitcoin itself. It does not describe the asset as illicit, and it does not describe the ledger as opaque; the opposite inference is available, since the allegation of transfers between June and July presupposes that someone could trace them. The public ledger is what makes an allegation of this shape checkable in principle, by anyone with the addresses.

Readers who want the mechanics of how transactions on a public ledger can be traced, and what an exchange's role is in that chain, will find the concepts explained in the Kripto Akadémia. Our Market Observation page carries sourced, timestamped price and volume data for bitcoin and other assets; it contains no trading instruction, and this article should not be read as one either. The team behind these readings is introduced on the About page, and longer documentary pieces on regulatory and enforcement texts are collected in The Analyst Room.

US Department of the Treasury, press release sb0632, "Operation Economic Outcast Disrupts Digital Asset Exchange Enabling the Iranian Regime", 17 September 2026, home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0632. The Block, "US sanctions Iranian crypto exchange BitBank over alleged bitcoin transfers to IRGC", 17 September 2026, 4:05 PM EDT (secondary; used for the description of Hormuz Safe and for the Bessent quotation as reported). Crypto Briefing and CoinDesk, 18 September 2026 (secondary; headlines only, not relied on for facts).

Educational content. Not investment advice. This article describes a government document; it contains no instruction to buy, sell or hold any asset.