Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs says crypto exchange CoinEx has been used as a major gateway for Iranian-sanctions evasion, citing evidence that wallets linked to Iranian entities processed more than $3.84 billion through CoinEx since 2019.

In a report published Wednesday, TRM Labs estimates that roughly 60 Iranian-linked platforms were connected to the flows, with $2.7 billion of that total moving between CoinEx and Nobitex—described as Iran’s largest domestic exchange—at an average pace of about $1 million per day since 2018. The analysis also argues that CoinEx’s growing role in Nobitex’s external counterpart network is difficult to explain as “independent market behaviour.”

Key takeaways

• TRM Labs attributes over $3.84 billion in traced activity to wallets linked to sanctioned Iranian entities that have moved through CoinEx since 2019.
• The firm links $2.7 billion of that volume to CoinEx–Nobitex transfers, averaging about $1 million per day since 2018.
• TRM Labs says CoinEx handles nearly 8% of illicit transaction volume among exchanges it reviewed, far above a 0.3% benchmark it cites for other compliant exchanges.
• The analytics firm argues CoinEx’s relationship with major Iranian counterparties appears coordinated rather than organic, including Nobitex routing patterns.
• CoinEx denies any commercial relationship with sanctioned parties and disputes TRM’s interpretation of blockchain onchain flows.

TRM Labs ties CoinEx to Iran-related sanctions exposure

TRM Labs’ report frames CoinEx as one of the principal routes for moving value between Iranian crypto players and the broader market in ways that may undermine US sanctions. The firm says it identified wallets with links to sanctioned Iranian entities and then tracked how funds moved through CoinEx over a multi-year period.

The analysis highlights the scale of CoinEx’s exposure to Iranian platforms: TRM Labs estimates that around 60 Iranian platforms were connected to the traced funds. It further focuses on the relationship between CoinEx and Nobitex, stating that $2.7 billion flowed between the two since 2018.

TRM Labs also argues that the distribution of counterpart relationships is inconsistent with what it would expect from normal, independent trading behaviour. By 2024, it says CoinEx had become Nobitex’s largest external counterpart—nearly nine times the next-largest exchange partner—suggesting a relationship that may be more structural than incidental.

Why the timing matters for sanctions enforcement

The report arrives shortly after the US Treasury moved to widen its Iran-related crypto sanctions posture. Cointelegraph reported that about three weeks earlier, the US Treasury sanctioned four Iranian crypto exchanges as part of its “Economic Fury” campaign.

Those steps followed statements from the Treasury’s leadership indicating the government has seized and tracked significant crypto holdings tied to Iranian activity during the war period. According to Cointelegraph coverage, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Treasury had seized $1 billion in crypto from Iranian exchanges and wallets since the start of the conflict.

TRM Labs’ findings fit this broader enforcement narrative, underscoring a recurring compliance challenge for exchanges and intermediaries: even when a trading venue is not directly designated, it can still be used to route value through counterparties that sit on or near sanctions lists.

CoinEx response: onchain flows don’t prove knowledge

In a post published Thursday on X, CoinEx denied having any commercial relationship with the Iranian government or Iranian domestic exchanges, and said it has never provided funding channels to sanctioned parties. The exchange also challenged TRM Labs’ reading of blockchain data.

CoinEx’s position, as described in the article, is that onchain fund flows alone do not demonstrate that a platform knows about or participates in illicit activity. That dispute goes to a key point in compliance debates: whether tracing the movement of funds is sufficient to infer operational involvement, or whether additional evidence is required to establish knowledge or intent.

Nobitex routing patterns and CoinEx’s reported share of illicit volume

TRM Labs says many of Iran’s largest domestic exchanges route a meaningful fraction of their trading activity through CoinEx. The firm estimates that major Iranian exchanges typically pass about 5% to 10% of their trading volume through CoinEx, which TRM Labs characterizes as evidence of a coordinated arrangement rather than organic adoption.

In the same analysis, TRM Labs reports that CoinEx’s share of illicit transaction volume is nearly 8%. It contrasts that figure with a 0.3% threshold found at other compliant exchanges, implying CoinEx has a much higher concentration of traced illicit activity than peers.

The report also includes details involving CoinEx-affiliated infrastructure. TRM Labs says a CoinEx-affiliated mining pool, ViaBTC, accounted for another $154 million in traced exposure to Nobitex through mining payouts, and also supplied emergency liquidity to Nobitex after Predatory Sparrow’s reported $90 million hack in June 2025. Cointelegraph says it contacted ViaBTC for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.

Nobitex, meanwhile, has been the focus of broader reporting and industry forensics. Cointelegraph notes that Chainalysis previously described Nobitex as central to a “digital dollar pipeline” and estimated it handled about 50% of Iran’s crypto trading volume. Earlier coverage also said Nobitex was linked to a powerful family with ties to Iran’s Supreme Leader, while Cointelegraph reported that US authorities sanctioned front companies—Zedcex and Zedxion—connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

What to watch next

TRM Labs’ report reinforces the likelihood that sanctions scrutiny will continue to focus not only on named Iranian venues, but also on the trading rails—exchanges, counterparties, and related infrastructure—that can move funds between sanctioned actors and global liquidity. The next signal to monitor is whether exchanges such as CoinEx face new compliance actions or whether additional reporting from analytics firms narrows the gap between “traced flows” and demonstrable knowledge.

The crypto market showed signs of resilience on Thursday, with bitcoin BTC$61,176.51 adding 1.1% since midnight UTC after dipping below $60,000 on Wednesday to its lowest since October 2024.

The largest cryptocurrency remains at a critical level in terms of broader market structure. A potential break lower in price could trigger a slide to around $52,000. For now, it appears to have weathered the storm.

Ether (ETH) rose 1.5% on Thursday and was recently trading at $1,644 after briefly tumbling to $1,550 at around 17:00 UTC on Wednesday.

Thursday’s gains can possibly be linked to a recovery in U.S. equities. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures are 0.7% and 2.2% higher, respectively.

Derivatives positioning

• BTC revisited lows near $59,000 on Wednesday and has since bounced back to over $61,000.
• The two-way volatility has proven costly for leveraged futures bets across the market. Centralized exchanges liquidated nearly $1 billion in crypto futures positions within 24 hours, with longs accounting for the largest portion.
• Still, bitcoin’s futures open interest (OI) has jumped to 763K BTC, the most since June 4, ending a stretch of steadiness around 730K BTC. In other words, the price drop has triggered an inflow of money, but not necessarily on the bullish side. In fact, annualized funding rates have flipped negative, a sign of traders paying a premium for downside exposure.
• The ether futures market hasn’t seen any notable increase in OI, and funding rates remain slightly positive.
• SOL’s OI remains near Wednesday’s record high, alongside largely neutral funding rates that point to balanced positioning in the market. The same is true for XRP, whose OI is hovering at its highest levels since October.
• The OI-normalized, 24-hour cumulative volume delta for most coins, including BTC, is negative for a third straight day. That’s a sign bears are leading the price action by shorting at market prices rather than using passive limit orders.
• BVIV, which measures the 30-day implied volatility in BTC, has pulled back to 46% a high of 51%. This decline in the so-called “fear gauge,” representing demand for options, supports the cryptocurrency’s overnight rebound. The same is true for ether’s implied volatility index, EVIV.
• Still, ether is seen as more volatile than BTC, with implied volatilities richer by 10 points or more compared with bitcoin’s across all timeframes.
• Option skews for the two largest cryptocurrencies indicate downside concerns that are both persistent and strengthening . For instance, BTC’s one-week skew shows a nearly 25-point volatility premium for puts. This also means upside bets are currently cheap and could draw strong demand should Thursday’s U.S. Core PCE for May reveal a slowdown in inflation.

Token talk

• The altcoin market posted an exaggerated bounce on Thursday after losses on Wednesday, a reflection of a low-liquidity environment.
• Jupiter (JUP) fell by more than 12% in six hours on Wednesday before bouncing by more than 18%, liquidating futures traders in both directions.
• Coinglass data shows that $1 billion in futures positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, with $585 million of that being attributed to altcoin trading pairs.
• Decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens AAVE and ETHFI also performed well on Thursday, rising by 2.5% and 4.7%, respectively, since midnight.
• AI tokens, meanwhile, struggled to recover. RENDER and NEAR posted losses of between 0.8% and 1.9% despite a bounce across other crypto sectors.
• Layer-1 network token solana (SOL) tumbled to $64 on Wednesday to complete a 75% slide since September. A break below June 6’s low of $60 would mark its lowest point since December 2023.

Key Takeaways

• Shares of Hertz plummeted 41% to $3.00 on Wednesday following a sharp reduction in second-quarter adjusted EBITDA expectations to $50M–$80M
• Deteriorating used-vehicle market conditions drove net monthly depreciation to approximately $300 per vehicle, exceeding previous projections
• The company launched a dual capital raise: $100M in common equity and $300M in exchangeable notes (subsequently increased to $350M)
• Year-to-date losses now stand at 28%, with shares down nearly 50% over the trailing twelve months
• On June 25, Hertz priced 37,037,037 shares at $2.70 apiece, with J.P. Morgan serving as lead underwriter

Hertz (HTZ) experienced its most devastating trading session on record Wednesday, with shares collapsing 41% to close at $3.00. The unprecedented decline came after the rental car company issued a disappointing earnings preview and unveiled plans to raise hundreds of millions in fresh capital.

Hertz Global Holdings, Inc., HTZ

Management revealed that second-quarter adjusted corporate EBITDA would likely land between $50 million and $80 million. This figure sits at the bottom of the company’s earlier projections.

The primary driver? Unexpected weakness in the pre-owned vehicle marketplace. Hertz disclosed that deteriorating conditions in May erased gains achieved through April vehicle disposals, resulting in elevated depreciation expenses.

Monthly net depreciation per vehicle — representing the value decline of each rental unit over thirty days — is projected to reach approximately $300 for the second quarter. Just weeks ago, management had indicated this metric would come in substantially lower.

In response to these pressures, Hertz initiated two simultaneous financing transactions. The first involves $100 million in common equity. The second consists of $300 million in payment-in-kind (PIK) exchangeable notes, subsequently expanded to $350 million at 6.75% interest, maturing in 2030.

The company priced 37,037,037 common shares at $2.70 per share on June 25, lending them to lead underwriter J.P. Morgan Securities. The investment bank will sell these borrowed shares, establish a short position to facilitate hedging for note purchasers, and later return equivalent shares to Hertz.

Hertz receives a minimal lending fee from the equity arrangement — but captures no direct cash proceeds from the share sale. Net proceeds from the notes transaction are anticipated to total roughly $339.5 million, potentially reaching $388 million if the overallotment option is fully exercised.

Management intends to deploy the capital to reduce outstanding balances on its revolving credit facility and support general corporate operations.

Extended Downturn

Wednesday’s collapse adds to an already punishing period for shareholders. HTZ has declined 28% since January and approximately 50% over the past year. During this same timeframe, the S&P Small Cap 600 — Hertz’s benchmark index — has advanced more than 19% and 34%, respectively.

The stock currently trades 54% beneath its 52-week peak of $7.97, reached in July 2025.

Hertz has dedicated the past year to operational improvements. The company modernized its vehicle fleet, implemented cost-reduction initiatives, and announced two partnerships with Uber in April to support autonomous taxi development — announcements that temporarily boosted the share price.

However, the turnaround has proven unstable. Shares received a temporary boost earlier this year when travel disruptions linked to a partial government shutdown increased rental demand, but those gains evaporated once TSA personnel received payment and air travel normalized.

Bankruptcy Legacy

The company’s 2020 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing continues to cast a long shadow. Hertz entered bankruptcy protection as international travel evaporated and used-vehicle valuations plummeted. The company notably became an early meme stock phenomenon, with retail investors driving shares up 800% despite its bankruptcy status.

Hertz completed its restructuring in June 2021, generating over $1 billion in value for equity holders — an uncommon bankruptcy outcome.

Legal challenges persist. In January, the Supreme Court refused to review Hertz’s appeal of a lower court decision, leaving the company responsible for $270 million in interest obligations owed to bondholders who were repaid ahead of schedule during bankruptcy proceedings.

The latest analyst recommendation on HTZ is rated as Sell, with a $3.00 price target.

New forensic research published yesterday suggests that Hal Finney might not have been the second person to run a BTC node.

For 17 years, the man who tweeted “Running bitcoin” earned an unofficial title. In the eyes of many Bitcoin historians, Finney was the second person after creator Satoshi Nakamo to run a Bitcoin node.

Indeed, thousands of articles credit Finney as Bitcoin’s second participant.

However, it turns out that he might actually have been the third.

Although it is an indisputable, on-chain fact that Finney earned the first coinbase reward after Nakamoto for mining a block, forensic researcher Alex Waltz argues that another man was running a mining-capable node before Finney.

According to Waltz’s timestamps, although Dustin Trammell was running a node before Finney, an idiosyncratic network connectivity issue in Bitcoin software prior to version 0.1.3 prevented Trammell from connecting to Nakamoto’s nodes fast enough to outpace Finney.

Besides, both core and headline readings may be seen as stale, or backward looking, considering the recent slide in oil prices. WTI crude futures have dropped to $70, significantly below the $100-plus level seen during the Iran war in March and April. Headline inflation is expected to hit 4.1%, the highest since early 2023, driven largely by energy prices.

“The main question is less whether both headline and core go up—they are widely expected to—but rather how “stale” these numbers already are,” economist Mohamed A. El Erian, the former CEO of Pimco, noted on X.

“These numbers come before the recent sharp fall in oil prices, which will result in lower headline inflation and ease some of the pressures on core. The question being debated is by how much, including whether May will prove to be the peak inflation month.”

Beyond inflation numbers, watch out for volatility in Strategy’s common shares, MSTR, and preferred stock, STRC, plus AI names on Wall Street. MSTR is flashing a well-recognized major bearish pattern (Check the Daily Signal). Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today . For a comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

Key Highlights

• Meta Platforms is transitioning content moderation responsibilities to artificial intelligence powered by large language models
• Approximately 50% of content review tasks are currently managed by AI systems in 2026
• The social media giant aims to exceed 90% AI-driven moderation for specific content categories before year’s end
• This initiative aligns with broader cost reduction efforts as CEO Mark Zuckerberg invests heavily in AI development
• The company has eliminated approximately 8,000 positions (representing 10% of total staff) while maintaining Strong Buy analyst consensus at $815.82 target price

Meta Platforms is aggressively accelerating its transition toward AI-driven content moderation. The tech behemoth, valued at $1.4 trillion, is systematically replacing human content reviewers with advanced large language models throughout its social media ecosystem, based on reporting from the Financial Times this Thursday.

META shares experienced a 0.81% decline during trading.

Meta Platforms, Inc., META

The social media company has already transitioned approximately half of all human content moderation requests to artificial intelligence systems throughout this year. Industry observers anticipate this percentage could surge beyond 90% for particular content classifications prior to 2026’s conclusion.

This represents a significant timeline acceleration. Meta had previously communicated intentions to maintain human reviewers as part of its moderation framework, with initial projections suggesting a multi-year phased approach.

Traditionally, Meta deployed a combination of proprietary automated detection systems alongside human moderators — including external contract workers — to identify posts and advertisements violating platform policies. User dispute resolutions were similarly managed by human staff.

Currently, artificial intelligence systems are assuming the majority of these responsibilities.

Zuckerberg’s Vision for an AI-Powered Organization

The content moderation transformation represents one component of a comprehensive cost optimization and AI investment initiative championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Meta recently reduced its global employee count by 10%, eliminating roughly 8,000 positions. Zuckerberg has publicly attributed artificial intelligence technologies with generating substantial productivity improvements company-wide.

“I think that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work,” Zuckerberg said publicly.

The organization has allocated billions toward acquiring AI expertise and infrastructure development, with Zuckerberg articulating his ambition to create “personal superintelligence” — highly customized AI assistants tailored to individual users.

Reports also indicate Meta attempted implementing monitoring systems to track U.S.-based employees’ screen activity for productivity assessment purposes, though the initiative was abandoned following employee resistance.

Concerns Regarding Implementation Speed and Platform Security

The aggressive transition has encountered obstacles. A recent AI chatbot security incident at Meta has sparked concerns about whether the company is advancing too rapidly with AI deployment.

Meta’s artificial intelligence tools now serve multiple functions beyond standard moderation, including detecting fraudulent schemes and eliminating prohibited content. These responsibilities continue expanding.

The company’s moderation infrastructure has historically relied upon third-party contractors managing complex cases requiring nuanced judgment. The impact on these positions as AI assumes greater responsibilities remains unclear.

Wall Street analysts maintain strong confidence in the stock. META carries a Strong Buy consensus rating supported by 31 Buy recommendations and 6 Hold ratings from 37 analysts surveyed during the past three months.

The consensus price target stands at $815.82, suggesting approximately 46% potential appreciation from present trading levels.