Over the past seven years, the CoinEx crypto exchange has processed more than $3.8B in transactions linked to Iranian market participants, including companies hit with U.S. sanctions. That's the conclusion reached by the analytics firm TRM Labs, which examined public blockchain data and the chains of transfers between Iranian platforms and international infrastructure.
According to the research, by 2024 CoinEx had become the largest foreign counterparty of the Iranian exchange Nobitex, taking the place of Binance after the latter scaled back its presence in this segment following tighter sanctions-compliance procedures.
The report was published on June 24, and its findings formed the basis of a story by The Wall Street Journal.
The Money Trail
The analysts claim that funds connected to various Iranian crypto services passed through CoinEx, and that the total volume of transfers between CoinEx and Nobitex exceeded $760M in 2025 alone.
In one of the cases they studied, the specialists traced a chain of transfers that began with funds previously stolen in the Bybit hack. After a series of swaps through decentralized protocols, part of these assets, by TRM Labs' estimate, ultimately landed in CoinEx accounts. Inside the exchange, these funds were mixed with other deposits, after which further tracing became impossible.
In all, the research features more than 60 Iranian crypto platforms that interacted with CoinEx infrastructure.
The Sanctions Picture
TRM Labs also stated that it had identified direct transactional links between CoinEx and wallets that U.S. authorities had previously associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The report describes several million dollars' worth of transactions with addresses that, according to American regulators, were used by structures tied to Iran.
In early June, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on a number of Iranian crypto exchanges, including Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex, ramping up pressure on the country's digital infrastructure.
CoinEx's Position
CoinEx rejected the investigation's conclusions and stated that it had never cooperated with Iranian government structures, local exchanges, or sanctioned individuals.
“Transactions on public blockchains are open by their very nature, and the movement of funds through the platform's infrastructure does not mean the exchange was aware of the origin of the assets or involved in clients' operations,” the company emphasized in its statement.
CoinEx representatives also noted that the data from different analytics services varies significantly, which is why the results of any single provider cannot be considered conclusive proof.
Exiting the Iranian Market
CoinEx stated that it has already blocked the registration of new users from Iranian IP addresses, begun reviewing its customer identification procedures, and is launching an internal audit of the operations featured in the investigation.
The exchange's founder, Haipo Yang, confirmed that the platform had started reducing its presence in Iran following the recent sanctions against Nobitex.