The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated BitBank, an Iranian digital-asset exchange controlled by the sanctioned financier Babak Zanjani, along with its software developer and three Zanjani associates. The maritime link is Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, the Iranian entity at the centre of Tehran's alternative system for managing commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz: Treasury says Hormuz Safe has used BitBank since June to transfer the payments it collects into Iran's financial system. Separately, OFAC alleges Zanjani used BitBank between June and July to move hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The action extends Washington's campaign against the financial architecture built around shipping through Hormuz, following July designations of Hormuz Safe and the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company. For compliance teams, the designation is a sanctions-screening event as much as a cyber one: it names an exchange, a corporate financer and the payment rails behind transit fees levied on commercial shipping.

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