Iran’s central bank chief rejects US claims on cryptocurrency links

Iran’s top central banker is pushing back hard against Washington’s expanding crypto sanctions campaign, flatly denying that recently targeted exchanges and wallets have any ties to the Iranian state. The US Treasury has spent the better part of 2026 methodically sanctioning Iranian crypto infrastructure and freezing nine figures worth of digital assets in the process. Central Bank of Iran Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati, who took the role in late December 2025, maintains that the exchanges Washington has gone after are not connected to Iran and that Tehran retains full control over its funds. The sanctions timeline In June 2026, the US Treasury sanctioned Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, accusing it of processing transactions on behalf of the Central Bank of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the US, meaning any financial facilitation carries significant legal weight. Then came July. The Treasury sanctioned four wallets it said were linked to the CBI, prompting Tether to freeze approximately $131 million in digital assets connected to those addresses. On August 7, the Treasury sanctioned two ad...