Did BitBank Sanctions Move Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is trading at $80,000. This after the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tehran-based cryptocurrency exchange BitBank on Sept.

17, alleging the platform moved hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The muted recovering price action around BTC USD raises the central question this article addresses: how does a sanctions action tied to a major geopolitical flashpoint and a U.S.-designated terrorist organization square with an apparently limited Bitcoin market reaction?

Treasury also said BitBank processed payments collected from ships buying passage through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most heavily trafficked oil chokepoints.