Binance has processed $8 billion in cryptocurrency transfers to Iran since 2018. The information is from an investigation by the Reuters news agency in a report published this Friday (4). The Asian country is on the list of trade sanctions imposed by the United States.
According to the report, almost the entire transfer, $7.8 billion, was made from Binance to Nobitex. It is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Iran.
The analyzes were conducted with data from Chainalysis, a firm that conducts investigations via blockchain records.
Three-quarters of the transfers were carried out using the Tron (TRX) cryptocurrency, which, according to Reuters, “gives the user options to hide their identity.” A post on Nobitex’s official blog is quoted, in which the company advises the use of Tron so that users reduce the chance of losing assets due to US sanctions.
A unit of Tron (TRX) is selling at $0.063115, up 2%, according to Coingecko data. The token is part of the Tron Foundation, the organization behind the blockchain network of the same name and founded by Justin Sun in 2017. Bitcoin Portal.
Reuters states that operations continue to be carried out and has made available the database that shows transactions carried out from August 20, 2021 to date. In this period alone, there was a total of US$ 1 billion in transfers.
Binance announced in November 2018 that it would stop serving customers in Iran and asked users in the country to liquidate their positions on the platform.
“Binance causes fewer problems for Iranians”
The report describes that Nobitex published a guide on its website that advises and teaches customers how to open accounts to convert the rial, local currency, into cryptocurrencies and transfer these assets to foreign exchanges such as Binance, which was pointed out as “the most reliable” and the one that “causes the least problems for Iranian users”.
Nobitex even recommended that its customers never transfer all amounts in a transaction. Instead, it would be better to create multiple wallets and make smaller transfers, to avoid risks that exist because of the US sanction.
Sanctions against Iran
In 2018, the US reimposed sanctions on Iran, after three years in which economic relations were restored to some degree. Everything revolves around the nuclear deal signed in 2015 by Barack Obama and undone by Donald Trump in 2018.
Binance claims that in the United States a company was created, called Binance US, which follows all the rules imposed in the country. But there is a risk in so-called secondary sanctions: they are rules that seek to prevent foreign companies from doing business with banned entities or helping people from these countries to evade the embargo.
If anything along these lines is established, Binance and Binance US may be blocked from accessing the US financial system.
US institutions that violate the sanction against Iran can be criminally prosecuted and fined up to $1 million per violation.
Service up and running for Iranians
In July, Reuters published a report stating that Binance continued to allow transactions on the platform to be made by people in Iran even after the Asian country was added to the US trade sanctions list in 2018.
The news outlet interviewed seven traders who said they used the exchange normally until September 2021 — a month before the company announced tougher rules to prevent money laundering.
Users in Iran said that no tools were needed to circumvent the sanction and that Binance only asked for an email to proceed with trading.
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