Iranians have evaded sanctions for years by financing bitcoin exchanges

Since 2018, Iran has once again come under heavy US sanctions. Yet apparently a group of Iranians managed to circumvent these restrictions through Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Iran seizes crypto

writes that ReutersHe spoke to seven different Iranian traders. Sanctions were first lifted in 2015 after the country pledged not to develop nuclear weapons. Subsequently, it was again possible for Iranians to trade with Western companies.

But in 2018, Donald Trump re-imposed tougher sanctions, accusing the country of not abiding by those agreements. Subsequently, the country was kicked out of the SWIFT banking payment system. At the time, it was practically the most drastic measure the United States could have introduced. This resulted in massive inflation in Iran. Officially, it wasn’t hyperinflation, but some say it was in practice. So many Iranian investors turned to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC).

Binance was still open to IranIrish

Iranians are amazing Finance Can still be used. At least, until September 2021. Strict anti-money laundering measures came into force, causing Finance to close these accounts as well.

†There were a few alternatives, but none as good as Finance.a trader told Reuters. Binance has been consistently number one globally in terms of trading volume for years. Since identification was not required at the time, the trader was able to create an account on Binance. Exchanges, including finance, have had identity obligations for some time. But back then only an email address was required.

A Blog post from last March The exchange insists it uses “bank-grade anti-money laundering software”. The agency wanted to make it clear that Russians cannot avoid sanctions through finance. However, Binance has nothing to say about Iran. According to Reuters lawyers, Binance does not have to comply with the sanctions in principle because it is not headquartered in the United States, unless it operates through Binance.US. However, it’s clear the company wants to comply with sanctions as much as possible, perhaps because it came under fire from regulators last year.