Whales are still moving funds through Nobitex

Nobitex, one of Iran’s leading exchanges, is still the venue for significant transaction activity. The exchange volume has shifted to stablecoins and is mostly driven by whales. 

A recent report by Global Ledger shared with Cryptopolitan pointed out that Nobitex was surprisingly robust even after the effects of the war in Iran. The exchange, which was hacked for $81.7M on TRON, still carries stablecoin traffic and even allows funds to move out of the sanctioned country. 

As Cryptopolitan reported earlier, Nobitex has been closely watched for its transaction flows, with some of the funds moving through TRON and BNB Chain.

In 2026, Nobitex volumes dropped sharply, processing $46.97M for the year to date. The activity of just $9.4M per month is just a fraction of the peak volumes of Nobitex. In 2024, the exchange processed $207M monthly from its peak. 

Nobitex is still a key hub for Iran

Global Ledger analysis showed Nobitex was resilient and remained a critical hub for crypto activity in Iran. In 2026, turnover fell more than 18 times compared to the 2024 peak. 

Despite the sanctions, Nobitex remained connected to the wider centralized exchange ecosystem. Nobitex moved $3.06B to other centralized exchanges, with $1.13B processed by the top 10 centralized markets. 

The exchange flow analysis showed that large players made the bulk of volumes. Around 4% of addresses with over $200K in transactions generated 85% of the volume on Nobitex. 

The war in Iran was a major geopolitical shock, but it did not destroy Nobitex. After a 50% drop in volumes since March, the exchange recovered slightly, returning to its levels from February 2026. The recovery shows crypto players in Iran are adapting to the new conditions, and still seek USDT as the main safe-haven asset. 

Nobitex saw a shift in asset usage

After the US attacks on Iran, BTC usage dropped, with just 0.08BTC deposited to Nobitex. The conflict caused a 86.5% drop in BTC deposits. 

ETH was one of the assets with a clear spike in deposits after February 28. The war accelerated ETH deposits, from 599 ETH before the war to 2,021 ETH after the conflict, a 3.4-time increase. 

LTC deposits fell by 34% after the war, while TRX inflows shrank by 6%. USDT deposits only declined by around 9%, still acting as the central asset. Nobitex uses USDT on TRON, and the stablecoin makes up around 84.4% of volumes. 

Nobitex currently carries 11.1M in assets, based on Arkham Intelligence data. In the past day, another large-scale withdrawal was intercepted. A suspicious wallet withdrew $18.85M on multiple chains. 

So far, the withdrawal has not been flagged as an exploit. Nobitex is also closely tracked as a hub for laundering funds and sanction evasion. The recent transaction took $8.07M in BNB, $3.19M in SHIB, and $1.09M in USDT. The funds are still held in the first destination wallet. 

While it is still early to say whether Nobitex would return, the exchange showed crypto activity in Iran has continued, with more attempts to trade or move funds as a way of evading sanctions.

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