Merve Aydogan

The US Treasury Department on Thursday sanctioned an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange, accusing it of helping transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The sanctions, imposed by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), target BitBank, its developer Pishtaz Simorgh Electronics, and three associates of Iranian financier Babak Zanjani.

Treasury accused Zanjani of using BitBank between June and July to facilitate the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as part of alleged efforts to evade US sanctions.

The department claimed that BitBank was a key…