A recent report has placed Binance back under the regulatory spotlight, raising serious questions about its compliance with U.S. sanctions against Iran.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that a network linked to sanctioned Iranian businessman Babak Zanjani processed approximately $850 million through Binance between 2024 and 2025. The report alleges some of these funds may have benefited Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated terrorist organization. This activity purportedly continued even after Binance's major legal settlement with U.S. authorities in late 2023. For its part, Binance has strongly denied the allegations, arguing that the transactions in question occurred before the entities were sanctioned and that it has since cooperated with law enforcement to offboard the relevant accounts.
However, this situation isn't unfolding in a vacuum. It coincides with a significant escalation by the U.S. Treasury in its efforts to dismantle Iran's primary revenue stream: oil sales to China. U.S. authorities are now targeting the entire financial pipeline that facilitates these sales. This includes Chinese independent refiners, often called 'teapot' refineries, and the opaque "shadow banking" networks they use for payment. These networks frequently leverage cryptocurrencies to move funds across borders while evading traditional financial oversight.
The timing is what makes the WSJ report particularly potent. First, throughout April and May 2026, the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a series of pointed sanctions and alerts targeting this very Iran-China oil payment architecture. These warnings explicitly put financial institutions, including crypto exchanges, on notice about the risks of being involved, even indirectly. Second, the WSJ's article then provided a specific, high-profile name—Binance—along with concrete figures, placing the exchange squarely in the crosshairs of the exact activity the U.S. government had just declared a top enforcement priority.
Ultimately, this transforms the issue from a matter of past compliance failures into a real-time test of Binance's current commitments. In November 2023, Binance agreed to a historic $4.3 billion settlement and a five-year monitorship to overhaul its anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance programs. The new allegations directly challenge whether Binance is upholding its end of that deal. If the U.S. Department of Justice determines that the company violated the terms of its monitorship, the consequences could be severe, ranging from additional multi-billion dollar fines to stricter oversight and the potential loss of critical U.S. dollar payment partners.
- Glossary -
- OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control): A U.S. Treasury department that administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions.
- IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps): A branch of the Iranian Armed Forces, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S.
- Teapot Refineries: Small, independent oil refineries in China, which have become major buyers of sanctioned Iranian oil.