The U.S. Department of the Treasury has privately ordered Binance to follow the compliance monitoring program tied to its 2023 guilty plea, after fresh reports linked the exchange to Iranian crypto flows.
Treasury's Private Demand
The directive was reported Thursday by The Information, citing people familiar with the matter. It marks a sharp shift from the lighter posture regulators had shown the exchange in recent months.
Binance pleaded guilty in November 2023 to sanctions and anti-money-laundering violations.
The exchange paid more than $4.3 billion in penalties and accepted two independent monitors reporting separately to the Justice Department and FinCEN.
The new pressure follows months of allegations that more than $1 billion moved through Binance to Iran-linked wallets between Mar. 2024 and August 2025, according to internal compliance records cited by Fortune.
Founder Changpeng Zhao served four months in prison and later received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump in October 2025.
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Senators And Sanctions Risk
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has been the loudest voice questioning the monitorship. He warned of "dangerously lax" controls in letters to the DOJ and Treasury last month.
Eleven Democratic senators, led by Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen, also pressed regulators in Mar. to confirm whether Binance breached its plea terms.
The exchange has rejected the claims and sued Dow Jones for defamation in Mar., calling the Wall Street Journal's reporting on the firings inaccurate. Binance says its sanctions exposure dropped 96.8% over 18 months.
Iran Crypto Backdrop
Iran's crypto market has expanded sharply under Western sanctions. Treasury estimates that wallets tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps received more than $3 billion last year, much of it routed through stablecoin Tether (USDT) on the Tron network.
In January 2026, the Treasury sanctioned two smaller exchanges, Zedcex and Zedxion, that allegedly moved tens of billions for Iran-aligned actors. The DOJ opened its own probe in Mar. into whether Iranian networks used Binance to bypass U.S. sanctions, including transfers tied to Yemen's Houthi militants.
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