In the recent Chainalysis MENA crypto adoption report 2025, Iran stood out because its persistent crypto ecosystem growth 11.8% more crypto volume in mid 2025 than during same period in 2024 and this is despite sanctions, economic pressures, and isolation from global financial networks and regulated crypto exchanges

In early 2025, Nobitex one of Iran’s biggest crypto exchanges, suffered a major hack resulting in losses estimated at $90 million, an event that might have derailed a less established market. Yet the cumulative volume data show minimal disruption to the overall growth trajectory, suggesting Iranian crypto users have developed a high tolerance for operational risks.

Nobitex.ir maintains its commanding position despite the previously mentioned security incident, accounting for 54.2% of all crypto inflows to Iranian services in 2025.

As per Chainalysis’s report these crypto platforms form a relatively self-contained ecosystem that has developed to meet local needs while operating largely independently from global cryptocurrency infrastructure, with a robust crypto mining sector.

Increasing isolation from global financial system

The average number of transactional “hops” required for funds to move between Iranian services and compliant global exchanges has steadily increased from 1.6 in 2021 to 4.1 in 2025, a trend that accelerated notably from 2022 onward. This is indicative of the fact that global crypto exchanges are implementing more sanction screening, and blockchain analysis tools, forcing Iranian crypto flows to reroute into complex pathways.

In August 2025, UAE based Crystal Intelligence in a webinar revealed that 1.4% of Iran’s annual GDP flows through cryptocurrency. 20 percent of 21 million Iranians are active crypto users. It was noted that this activity is often invisible to on-chain analysis as it occurs through domestic exchanges and informal P2P networks.