LONDON (Reuters) — When customers of Iran’s largest crypto exchange needed to move billions of dollars, networks created by two of the industry’s biggest players served as conduits.

And from the early stages of US President Donald Trump’s flagship digital currency venture, the same two players lent credibility to the startup.

According to data analyzed by Reuters, Iran’s Nobitex exchange has processed at least $2.3 billion since 2023 on Tron and BNB Chain, blockchains established respectively under crypto billionaires Justin Sun and Changpeng Zhao. Users of Tron and BNB Chain pay fees to use the blockchains, which serve as secure, tamper-resistant record keepers.

Iranian money has kept moving through those two digital ledgers during the US and Israeli war against the Islamic Republic.

Sun and Binance, the crypto exchange owned by Zhao, are both prominent backers of World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm co-founded by Trump and his family.

There’s no suggestion that the Trump family knew of Nobitex’s use of Tron and BNB Chain.

Still, the Iran transactions highlight the potentially conflicted position in which the Trumps’ sprawling business interests have placed the US presidency. The family-owned Trump Organization real-estate empire, for example, continues to pursue foreign deals.

The use of the blockchains by institutions in a country the United States is at war with is a “dramatic irony,” said John Reed Stark, a former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Internet Enforcement. “The entities doing crypto financing through these platforms are the very ones that the president is trying to defeat in the war.”

The administration denies that Trump’s businesses pose any conflict of interest. “Reuters’ bizarre attempts to link President Trump to Iran’s banking system are totally laughable,” said Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman. She referred Reuters to World Liberty for further questions.

A spokeswoman for World Liberty said the company has no relationship with Nobitex and follows US law. “World Liberty does not own, operate, or control Tron in any way, and has no authority over transactions conducted on it,” she said.

Nobitex, which is used extensively by sanctioned Iranian institutions and ordinary citizens, has processed more than $2 billion on Tron since January 1, 2023, according to a Reuters breakdown of public blockchain data from crypto analytics firm Arkham.

Since 2023, Nobitex also has processed at least $317 million on BNB Chain, a blockchain formerly known as Binance Smart Chain that was developed by Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange.

Reuters is reporting the data from Arkham, which did not respond to a request for comment, for the first time.

Since the Iran war started in February, crypto worth at least $22.6 million has moved through Nobitex on BNB Chain, and at least $550,000 has moved via Tron.

Reuters reported on May 1 that Nobitex is controlled by two brothers from a powerful Iranian family that has close ties to the new supreme leader. Under the brothers’ leadership, the exchange has grown from a startup into a central node of a parallel Iranian financial system used to evade Western sanctions. Reuters found that its users have included Iran’s central bank and the Islamic........

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