Written by: angelilu, Foresight News
On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel jointly launched the first airstrike against Iran. Within minutes of the news breaking, assets on Iran's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Nobitex, began to flow out at an unusual rate. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Middle East, after several days of war, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in Israel hit a historical high on March 2.
The same war produced two completely different financial signals: one side celebrated capital, while the other saw wealth fleeing. This scenario may be the best entry point to understand the real role of crypto assets in geopolitical conflicts.
Nobitex Outflow Soars 700%
Nobitex is Iran's largest cryptocurrency exchange, with over 11 million registered users. In 2025, it processed crypto asset transactions worth $7.2 billion, making it the core infrastructure of Iran's crypto ecosystem.
According to on-chain monitoring data from the blockchain compliance firm Elliptic, within minutes of the US-Israeli airstrike, Nobitex's crypto asset outflows surged by 700%. The flow of funds indicates that these assets are being transferred abroad, primarily to overseas crypto exchanges that have historically received large sums from Iran.
Subsequently, shortly after the US announced sanctions on Iran, there were two further small spikes in crypto asset outflows, suggesting that crypto assets may be used in attempts to circumvent these sanctions.
A detailed analysis of the chart data reveals that before the airstrike, Nobitex's normal baseline for fund outflow was approximately $300,000 to $400,000 per hour, with peak outflows of around $2.8 million per hour. Although the absolute amount is not very large, it reflects a behavioral signal: upon hearing the news, people's first reaction was to transfer their assets. Furthermore, the data monitored by Elliptic only represents the on-chain traceable portion. A large volume of Iran's crypto trading occurs through over-the-counter (OTC) and P2P channels, which are entirely invisible in these data, meaning the actual outflow scale is likely even larger.
This is not an isolated incident. Elliptic's tracking shows that since January 2026, Nobitex has experienced multiple peaks in outflows: On January 9, widespread protests erupted in Iran, prompting the government to implement an internet blockade, resulting in the highest outflow recorded for the year on that day, with some assets continuing to flow out even during the internet shutdown, indicating that some individuals were able to circumvent the blockade; this was followed by US Treasury sanctions on two UK-registered exchanges (Zedcex and Zedxion) linked to Iran, causing Nobitex's outflow to spike once again briefly.
Three peaks, three triggers—sanctions, internet shutdown, airstrike—together outline a pattern: whenever Iran's political or military risks increase, crypto assets become the first choice for capital flight.
Why Crypto, and Not Banks?
The answer to this question lies in Iran's decades-long history of sanctions.
Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has been under severe sanctions from the US and Western nations, cut off from the SWIFT international settlement system, making it nearly impossible for residents to transfer wealth abroad through traditional banking channels. Crypto assets provide a workaround: the Iranian rial is exchanged for stablecoins like USDT, which are then transferred to offshore wallets through on-chain transactions, ultimately entering foreign exchanges. The entire process avoids traditional banks, making it difficult for sanctions to reach.
The collapse of the rial also offers the most direct motive for escape. At the beginning of 2025, 1 US dollar was worth about 817,500 rials; by January 2026, the exchange rate had plummeted to 1.5 million rials; after the airstrike, the rial hit a historical low in one day, falling to 1.75 million rials per US dollar.
Amid long-term international sanctions and geopolitical conflicts, food prices in Iran have increased by over 72% year on year, with a national inflation rate reaching 42.5%. In contrast, in 1979 at the time of the Islamic Revolution, 1 US dollar could only be exchanged for about 70 rials. This means that over more than forty years, the purchasing power of the rial has shrunk by more than 25,000 times, effectively pulverizing the wealth of the populace under the wheels of changing times.
Previously, US Treasury Secretary Basant publicly acknowledged at a congressional hearing that the US had actively created a dollar shortage within Iran, accelerating the collapse of the rial, and characterized this as part of its strategy toward Iran.
What is even more noteworthy is that this path is not only being utilized by ordinary citizens. Elliptic's research indicates that the Iranian central bank itself holds at least $500 million in USDT through Nobitex as a reserve method to support the rial and circumvent sanctions. The government is controlling crypto while simultaneously relying on it—this contradiction itself indicates that crypto assets have become indispensable in sanctioned economies.
The Historical Pattern of War and Crypto Outflow
The case of Iran is not an isolated one, but rather a pattern that has been repeated in multiple countries.
In February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the West imposed the most severe financial sanctions on Russia in history, including expelling its major banks from the SWIFT system. The ruble subsequently plummeted, causing trading volumes of Bitcoin and USDT within Russia to surge rapidly. However, Russia's situation differs from Iran's: constrained by the liquidity limits of the crypto market, large-scale evasion of national-level sanctions is difficult to achieve, resulting in relatively limited actual outflow.
In August 2021, when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, the peak outflow of crypto assets reached about $150 million, mainly from capital fleeing the elite class in Kabul. Subsequently, the Taliban announced a ban on cryptocurrency, leading to a rapid market collapse.
Overall, a clear pattern emerges: wars or crises trigger surges in crypto asset outflows. What is different in Iran is that the outflow has formed a systematic rhythm here, not an occasional reaction, but a normalized escape channel for capital.
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