{"id":53793,"date":"2026-07-31T11:20:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T16:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/?p=53793"},"modified":"2026-07-31T11:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T16:21:17","slug":"us-sanctions-iran-companies-using-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/news\/us-sanctions-iran-companies-using-bitcoin","title":{"rendered":"US Closes in on Iran’s Strait of Hormuz Bitcoin Insurance Policy, Sanctions Companies"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Iran has been dodging sanctions by accepting pay in Bitcoin from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a Friday announcement from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The OFAC sanctioned the companies tied to the Iranian regime accused of doing so. Ships have barely been passing through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil passes through, since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the statement, OFAC said that Hormuz Safe, developed by Iran’s Ministry of Economy, “accepts payment in Bitcoin and other digital assets” so it can bypass sanctions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“With its economy in freefall and inflation in the triple digits, the regime is desperate for cash,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The United States will not allow Iran to hold global commerce hostage or use international shipping to finance the IRGC’s terrorism, aggression, and repression.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The OFAC statement added that two firms \u2014 the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company (PGMIC) and HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority (“Hormuz Safe”) \u2014 accused of running an IRGC-backed scheme forcing commercial vessels to buy mandatory “insurance” to transit the Strait of Hormuz.                       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloomberg <\/em>first reported<\/a> in May that Iran had started a Bitcoin-backed insurance service for Iranian shipping companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. earlier this month announced that it had frozen crypto linked to the Iranian regime, mostly in the form of the Tether stablecoin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stablecoins like Tether’s USDT can be frozen by the company that issues the asset but Bitcoin, being decentralized and having no single issuer, cannot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts have warned that a recession could follow due to the war between the U.S. and Iran due to high oil prices if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news comes after the U.S. froze Iran’s other digital assets. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3860,"featured_media":53794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4378],"tags":[76,1712,2035,6667],"class_list":["post-53793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-bitcoin","tag-iran","tag-ofac","tag-us-sanctions"],"author_data":{"id":3860,"name":"Mathew Di Salvo","nicename":"mathewdisalvo","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/cropped-Mathew-Di-Salvo-scaled-1.jpeg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/US-Closes-In-of-Irans-Bitcoin-Insurance-Policy-in-strait-of-hormuz.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3860"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53795,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53793\/revisions\/53795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}