Treasury Links Strait of Hormuz Tolls to BitBank in New OFAC Action

OFAC imposed sanctions on BitBank alongside its software vendor, Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, via a Thursday announcement. This action verifies that an Iranian digital asset platform processed safe transit via the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic point where Tehran has levied $1 million to $2 million on tankers since June. The Treasury Department states that BitBank moved hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin toward Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The statement indicates that the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority utilized BitBank to channel collected revenues to regime-linked bodies. That authority, which markets insurance and traffic management services to vessels paying the fee, received its own designation on July 29. Maritime legal specialists have characterized this arrangement as a violation of transit freedoms under the Law of the Sea.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent highlighted the scope of the measures: "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."

A notable operational shortfall in this move is the lack of disclosed wallet addresses. The agency listed no cryptocurrency wallet strings in the BitBank citations, in contrast to the seven tron wallets released when Zedcex was named in January. Compliance groups usually depend on these identifiers to filter activity, meaning particular on-chain movements must now be traced via alternative methods.

The secondary sanctions designation expands risk for non-domestic entities. A Dubai-based exchange or an Istanbul bank handling BitBank transactions faces potential cutoff from the American financial network, regardless of whether any U.S. party is involved. For offshore platforms, the primary danger is the loss of dollar connectivity instead of litigation in a U.S. tribunal. The established connection between Hormuz tolls and BitBank implies that any organization assisting with those payments falls under American legal purview. Bitcoin’s spot price is $81,024.00, gaining 6.19% in the past 24 hours, with trading volume of $43,984,618,642 during that timeframe.