Sanctions entities received $ 15.8 billion in crypto in 2024, accounting for 39% of all illegal crypto transactions, according to the 2025 Crypto -crime report By blockchain analytics firm chainalysis.
The report emphasized how increasing geopolitical tensions and financial limitations made countries such as Iran and Russia to turn to digital assets to avoid sanctions.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury has implemented the efforts to dismantle financial networks to support Sanctioned States, further than focusing on persons to disrupt the financial infrastructure of the core.
OFAC has issued 13 names with crypto addresses, the second highest total in the last seven years, despite a decrease in the total sanctions.
Iran’s dependence on crypto
The growing dependence on Iran of Crypto was clear, with centralized exchanges (CEXS) in the country that showed increased activities and capital outflows.
The flow rose to $ 4.18 billion in 2024, an increase of 70% on an annual basis, because residents turned into digital assets in the midst of the steep depreciation of the Iranian Rial and the inflation that floating around 40-50%.
The abrupt stopping of the Iranian government of withdrawal of stock markets indicates its attempts to curb financial outsource. Many Iranians turned to crypto as a hedge against economic instability and to maintain wealth, often with the help of digital assets to bypass financial checks imposed by the government.
In the meantime, the Trump government has published the National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-2) in February, which restored the “maximum pressure” campaign to Iran.
The Directive outlined aggressive measures for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to focus on Iran-linked financial networks and the disrupting sanctions discharge activities. These measures include investigating Iranian financial networks, the editing of illegal oil powers, taking up Iranian government activa and prosecuting leaders of terrorist groups.
The growing ecosystem of Russia
In Russia, legislators have established legislation that legalized and allowing digital assets for international payments to reduce the economic voltage of Western sanctions.
The policy shift was intended to alleviate financial pressure by enabling global trade by cryptocurrencies, and Russia strengthened the ties with BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – to explore alternative financial systems that the Bypass US dollar.
The Central Bank of Russia has encouraged efforts to integrate crypto into the financial system of the country under legal supervision, which emphasizes a significant deviation from the previous position of the country against digital assets.
Western agencies launched considerable activities in 2024 against Russian coupled crypto entities. On August 23, the Russian UAV developer KB Vostok Ooo sanctioned for asking crypto donations and probably facilitating drone sale to Russian troops in Ukraine.
The German federal criminal police seized an infrastructure of 47 no-KYC Crypto fairs involved in ransomware and darknet transactions as part of “Operation Final Exchange” on 19 September on 19 September.
In the meantime, OFAC has shifted Cryptex and its operator, Sergey Sergeevich Ivanov, based in Russia, on 26 September, for money laundering via fraud stores and darknet markets during “Operation Endgame”.
The performance took place on December 4, when the UK’s National Crime Agency dismantled a Russian money laundering network in “Operation Destabilis”, which led to 84 arrests and the seizure of more than € 20 million in cash and crypto.
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