White House signs executive order sanctioning Bitcoin addresses used for oil trade

President Trump signed an executive order authorizing OFAC to designate Bitcoin addresses used for the purchase or settlement of crude oil and refined petroleum products. The order gives Treasury 72 hours to publish an initial list of flagged UTXOs tied to Zhuhai Zhenrong, the National Iranian Oil Company, and any intermediary wallets in the settlement chain. Exchanges operating in U.S. jurisdictions are required to freeze flagged outputs on receipt. The administration called it “a digital blockade to match the naval one.” The problem: the Bitcoin protocol does not care about OFAC lists. The UTXOs are still spendable. You can sanction the addresses, but you cannot seize the keys.