The investigation comes at the worst possible time for the exchange. The U.S. Department of Justice has just filed for the forfeiture of $61 million in cryptocurrency that it describes as the proceeds of clandestine Iranian oil sales. Authorities claim that two Chinese companies used Binance accounts to move part of these funds.
The case inevitably recalls 2023. Binance had already pleaded guilty in the United States to several violations, including breaches of sanctions against Iran, and agreed to pay more than $4.3 billion in penalties.
This time, Washington wants to know what happened afterward.
Binance back in Washington’s sights
Regulatory pressure on exchanges has intensified sharply in recent months. BrefCrypto had already reported that Binance blocked transactions involving 17 platforms and services associated with several sanctioned jurisdictions, including some entities linked to Iran.
The new investigation, however, goes further.
According to information reported by Bitcoin Magazine based on Bloomberg, prosecutors are seeking to determine whether Binance Holdings Ltd. knowingly allowed Iran-linked entities to use the platform to circumvent U.S. sanctions.
The important word is “knowingly.”
The fact that a sanctioned address or company used crypto infrastructure is not, by itself, enough to establish an exchange’s criminal liability. For Washington, the question includes what information Binance had, what controls were in place and how the company responded when a risk was identified.
At this stage, this is therefore an investigation reported by anonymous sources to Bloomberg.
There has been no new conviction.
No new judicial agreement has been announced.
And there is no public finding establishing that Binance committed a new violation.
The historical context nevertheless makes this investigation particularly sensitive.
DOJ already targeting $61 million
A few days before this disclosure, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture action involving approximately $61 million in cryptocurrency.
The DOJ claims that the funds came from clandestine sales of Iranian crude oil and petroleum products.
U.S. authorities go much further in their description of the network. They allege that a group of crypto addresses, identified as “Entity A” in the complaint, received and redistributed more than $1.5 billion in proceeds linked to these oil sales. Some of the flows allegedly then benefited the Iranian government, intermediaries linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other actors associated with Tehran.
Two Chinese companies are named directly: Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale.
According to the DOJ, they used Binance accounts to convert and transfer part of the money.
The U.S. administration also claims that the two entities presented themselves as management or brokerage companies, while allegedly serving as intermediaries in the laundering of oil proceeds.
The precise legal characterization must be preserved: the forfeiture action is civil, and the allegations contained in the complaint still have to be established in court. The DOJ itself makes this clear.
The $61 million figure corresponds to the assets Washington is currently seeking to seize, not to the network’s alleged total flows.
The 2023 precedent weighs heavily
Binance is already familiar with this case.
In November 2023, the exchange pleaded guilty in the United States to violating the Bank Secrecy Act, failing to register as a money transmitter and violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The settlement totaled exactly $4.316 billion in criminal penalties and forfeiture.
The Iranian element was explicitly included in the case.
The DOJ established at the time that Binance knew it had a significant number of customers living in jurisdictions subject to U.S. sanctions, including Iran, while also serving U.S. customers. Between January 2018 and May 2022, the platform had therefore enabled more than $898 million in transactions between U.S. users and users ordinarily resident in Iran, according to the plea agreement.
Changpeng Zhao separately pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program.
The group agreed to significantly strengthen its compliance framework and submit to independent monitoring.
It is this history that gives the new investigation another dimension.
Washington is not only seeking to understand how Iranian funds moved through the crypto ecosystem.
According to Bloomberg, it is seeking to determine whether Binance allowed conduct related to precisely the type of risk for which it had already been sanctioned to recur after its conviction.
If this hypothesis were confirmed, the stakes would extend well beyond a simple KYC failure.
Iran expands its crypto channels
U.S. pressure comes in a much broader context.
Iran has faced heavy sanctions for years, limiting its access to the dollar, international banks and numerous payment channels. Crypto assets therefore offer obvious appeal to certain companies and intermediaries seeking cross-border alternatives.
BrefCrypto has already tracked financial movements and rumors involving several billion dollars in Iranian holdings, as well as their indirect impact on Bitcoin and the markets.
The United States has also stepped up its monitoring of crypto infrastructure associated with Tehran.
Bitcoin Magazine reports that the Treasury has notably targeted several wallets linked to the regime and that most of the assets frozen in a previous operation were held in the form of USDT.
This distinction between Bitcoin and a centralized stablecoin matters.
Tether can technically freeze certain USDT at the request of authorities or under its compliance procedures.
Bitcoin has no central issuer capable of placing an address on a blacklist at the protocol level.
That does not mean BTC cannot be seized. When an exchange holds the keys, an owner cooperates or an authority obtains control of a wallet, bitcoins can change hands.
The blockchain remains transparent.
Control of the keys remains decisive.
The issue extends beyond Bitcoin
The headline of the case can easily refer to “Iranian Bitcoin.”
In reality, the channels under examination are much broader.
U.S. authorities are focusing on stablecoins, exchange accounts, shell companies, unhosted addresses and conversions between traditional currency and digital assets.
The role of the CEX is therefore central.
An exchange such as Binance is not the Bitcoin network. It is an on-ramp, a market and sometimes a custodian. BrefCrypto’s guide to how a crypto exchange works and the difference between CEXs and DEXs helps explain this distinction.
On an open blockchain, a transaction can be difficult to stop before it is broadcast.
A regulated intermediary, by contrast, normally knows some of its customers, holds login data, monitors deposits and withdrawals and can block certain transactions.
That is precisely why financial sanctions are increasingly focused on these points of passage.
Crypto can move funds globally.
Conversion, liquidity and custody often remain concentrated in identifiable companies.
And that is where Washington is applying pressure.
Binance’s compliance is being directly tested
Since 2023, Binance has placed strong emphasis on its compliance investments.
The platform has strengthened its KYC procedures, sanctions teams and blockchain analytics tools. It also blocks more services and addresses when they are targeted by international sanctions.
This work does not erase the historical case.
The new test is whether it has actually worked.
The investigation reported by Bloomberg comes as U.S. authorities have access to a new set of transactions from the Iranian oil case. If some of these operations passed through Binance, investigators can compare on-chain movements, internal accounts and the control systems used by the exchange.
The mere movement of funds does not prove that Binance knew their origin.
Conversely, the existence of a compliance program does not guarantee that no problematic transaction can get through.
The case therefore turns on this gray area.
Who knew what?
When?
And what measures were taken?
The answers will determine whether the matter remains an investigation into users who misused the infrastructure or becomes a new case against the exchange itself.
A new stage in the financial war around Iran
The Binance case above all shows how closely sanctions and crypto are now intertwined.
Washington monitors wallets.
Exchanges monitor their users.
Stablecoin issuers can freeze assets.
Investigators track public transactions while sanctioned networks use multiple companies, jurisdictions and platforms.
Geopolitics therefore ends up directly in order books.
BrefCrypto had already observed this when tensions between Washington and Tehran moved Bitcoin and oil around the Strait of Hormuz. This time, the subject is no longer the price of BTC.
It is the financial infrastructure itself.
Binance has already paid more than $4.3 billion for its past failures, particularly those involving Iran.
The question in 2026 is now different: Did the controls imposed after that conviction actually close the door?
For now, prosecutors are investigating.
The DOJ is separately pursuing the forfeiture of $61 million.
That is where the publicly established facts end.
What is clear, however, is that the United States now has enough on-chain data and enough regulated entry points to track financial channels that, only a few years ago, were often portrayed as almost invisible.
