Elliptic’s initial tracing found many of the funds were sent to foreign crypto exchanges, potentially indicating capital flight from Iran amid rising uncertainty in the region. Iran’s top crypto exchange saw a significant spike in crypto withdrawals within minutes of the US and Israel launching strikes in Tehran on Saturday. However, a widespread internet outage curbed additional outflows. In a post on Monday, Elliptic said crypto outflows from the Nobitex exchange surged by more than 700% to over $500,000 within minutes of the first airstrikes, with a chart showing that outflows reached nearly $3 million in a single hour later that day. Elliptic said the sharp rise in outflows “potentially represents capital flight from Iran,” with its initial tracing showing that many of those funds were sent to foreign crypto exchanges. Read more
Two major news outlets published similar reports on Monday claiming that Binance had fired or suspended employees involved in an investigation into crypto going to Iranian entities. Binance CEO Richard Teng took to social media on Tuesday to attack what he called “inaccurate reporting” by the Wall Street Journal regarding investigators at the crypto exchange uncovering $1.7 billion in digital assets moving to Iranian entities. In a Tuesday X post, Teng said the report, published on Monday, contained “defamatory claims,” including a letter from Binance’s legal team “demanding immediate corrections and a full retraction of these false statements.” “Your Article is false, seriously misleading to your readers, and defamatory of our client,” said the letter to WSJ editor-in-chief Emma Tucker from lawyers at Withers Bergman. “Our client has written to you directly seeking correction of the major matters of significant concern and we call upon you to act responsibly, and to remove your Article pending this correcti...
Iran crypto flows dropped 11% so far this year to July, amid conflict with Israel, a $90 million hack on local crypto exchange Nobitex and Tether freezing 42 wallets. Flows into Iranian crypto trading platforms have fallen in 2025 due to a breakdown in nuclear negotiations with Israel, a $90 million hack on Iran’s largest crypto exchange, and a major stablecoin blacklisting, says blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs. Iranian crypto flows hit $3.7 billion between January and July, an 11% decrease compared to the same period last year, with the worst drop off coming in June and July, TRM Labs said in a report on Tuesday. Iran’s crypto flows started to sharply drop in June, just after the $90 million hack on Nobitex, which handles 87% of the country’s crypto transactions. Read more