The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is reportedly at the center of a secret payment network allegedly used to funnel $850 million to Iran's military forces. According to a Wall Street Journal report on Thursday, the network was run by Iranian billionaire financier Babak Zanjani, an "antisanction" operator, who allegedly used a single trading account on Binance over two years to facilitate transactions worth $850 million. Experts in terrorism-financing, foreign law-enforcement officials, and individuals familiar with the activity suggest that roughly half of those transactions likely financed Iran's military, as Tehran prepared for potential conflict with the U.S.

Binance's own internal investigators concluded that the accounts were part of a money-laundering network designed to fund the Iranian regime, the WSJ reported. The report also claims that Iran's central bank allegedly transferred $107 million in cryptocurrency into Binance accounts last year, while foreign investigators tracked roughly $260 million in transactions during 2024 and 2025 between Binance-linked accounts and wallets tied to sanctioned Iranian entities and suspected terrorist financiers.

Binance did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

These funds come on top of the roughly $1.7 billion that Binance investigators previously determined had flowed through the exchange to the same Iranian network, according to a February WSJ report. Binance had denied those allegations, calling them "demonstrably false" and "defamatory." However, the exchange had previously pleaded guilty to failing to register as a money transmitting business and breaching sanctions, agreeing to pay over $4 billion in penalties and retain an independent compliance monitor for three years.

In April, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sought answers about Binance's alleged $1.7 billion in Iran-linked flows. By May, cryptocurrency worth at least $22.6 million had reportedly moved through Nobitex on BNB Chain (CRYPTO: BNB), and at least $550,000 had moved via Tron (CRYPTO: TRX), since the Iran war started in late February. Nobitex, widely used by sanctioned Iranian institutions and ordinary citizens, processed over $2 billion on the Tron network and approximately $317 million on the BNB Chain from January 2023 onward.

Justin Sun, creator of TRON, was once closely tied to Trump-backed World Liberty Financial, though the relationship has since deteriorated into legal disputes. Meanwhile, Binance used World Liberty Financial's USD1 stablecoin in a $2 billion MGX deal, and co-founder Changpeng Zhao was later pardoned by President Donald Trump.

Image via Shutterstock