Iran proposes Bitcoin toll for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz

Article by Xiao Bing, Shenchao TechFlow

On April 8, the Financial Times reported that Iran has requested tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz to pay tolls in Bitcoin.

The source is Hamid Hosseini, spokesperson for the Iranian Consortium of Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Exporters. He told FT that tankers must first email cargo details; after Iran’s assessment, a fee of $1 per barrel of crude oil is charged. A fully loaded VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier), carrying 2 million barrels, would incur a transit fee of $2 million.

Payment method: Bitcoin. Hosseini stated, "Payments are completed within seconds, ensuring they cannot be traced or seized due to sanctions."

The consequences of not paying are also clear. According to the FT, VHF radio broadcasts within the strait warned: "Any vessel attempting to pass without authorization will be destroyed."

A country under comprehensive sanctions has set up a Bitcoin toll booth on the world’s most important oil shipping route.

At the end of February 2026, the U.S. and Israel launched a joint strike on Iran, prompting Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz in response. According to S&P Global data, oil tanker traffic through the strait plummeted by 97%.

To understand the significance of this strait: before the war, 100 to 120 merchant ships passed through daily, and about one-fifth of the world’s crude oil traveled through here. When it closes, oil prices surge, and the global economy trembles.

But as they kept closing things down, Iran realized that "closing" wasn't as effective as "collecting."

Since mid-March, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been operating an informal toll system in practice. Shipowners must submit detailed information to an IRGC-affiliated intermediary, including vessel ownership records, flag registration, cargo manifests, destination ports, crew lists, and even AIS tracking data. After approval, the IRGC issues a one-time password authorization and route instructions, directing vessels to transit along the northern coast of Iran under escort by patrol boats.

From March 30 to 31, the Iranian Parliament officially approved the Hormuz Strait Management Plan, enshrining the system into law. Fees are denominated in rials, but authorization is granted for payment in "digital currencies."

By April 7, when the U.S. and Iran reached a two-week ceasefire agreement, the system had already been operational for at least three weeks.

Hours after the ceasefire announcement, Houseni revealed new details in an interview with FT: tolls must be paid in Bitcoin. He justified this by saying it "ensures transactions cannot be traced or seized due to sanctions."

Hosseini’s statement contains two technical inaccuracies. Bitcoin transaction confirmations take minutes, not "seconds." Every transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain is publicly visible, and companies like Chainalysis and TRM Labs specialize in tracking blockchain funds from Iran. OFAC has sanctioned Iranian Bitcoin wallets since 2018.

But he was right about one thing: Bitcoin settlements do not pass through the U.S. correspondent banking system, so OFAC cannot freeze them at the moment the transaction occurs. Tracking after the fact is one thing; intercepting in real time is another. For a $2 million toll, "after the fact" is already too late.

TRM Labs' report provides a more comprehensive context. Over the past few years, the IRGC has increasingly relied on stablecoins such as USDT. Just two exchanges—Zedcex and Zedxion—sanctioned by OFAC in January 2026, processed approximately $1 billion in IRGC-linked funds. Chainalysis’s “2026 Cryptocurrency Crime Report” shows that in Q4 2025, IRGC-linked addresses accounted for more than half of all cryptocurrency inflows to Iran, exceeding $3 billion.

The problem is that stablecoins have backdoors.

Tether and Circle can both freeze addresses. In mid-2025, Tether executed the largest freeze in history on funds linked to Iran.

This is the logic behind Hormuz Toll Station’s choice of Bitcoin. For daily trade settlements, USDT works fine—small amounts, high frequency, fast transactions. But when it comes to a single toll fee of $2 million, Iranians won’t accept a tool whose issuer can freeze funds with a keystroke.

Bitcoin has no administrator, no freeze button. A slogan shouted by crypto enthusiasts for fifteen years has become a national necessity in the Strait of Hormuz.

Bloomberg's previous report also mentioned a third payment option: the Chinese yuan, processed through Kunlun Bank via the CIPS system, bypassing SWIFT. In reality, Iran provided shipowners with a menu: use the yuan if you have good relations with China, or use Bitcoin if you can use anything.

Iran has also implemented a five-level national classification system, offering lower rates for "friendly" countries and outright denying passage to vessels associated with the U.S. or Israel. Some operators have already re-registered their ships under the Pakistani flag to qualify for passage.

TRM Labs' estimate: If traffic returns to normal, tankers alone could generate $20 million daily, or $600 million to $800 million monthly. Including LNG and other cargo ships, this exceeds $800 million.

This level of monthly revenue is comparable to that of the Suez Canal in its peak years.

Iranian officials themselves invoke the Suez example. In 1956, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, and Egypt collected tolls from this waterway for seven decades, reaching a peak annual revenue of $9.4 billion in its best years. When defending the Hormuz Strait Management Plan, the Iranian Parliament explicitly cited the Suez precedent and also referenced Denmark’s historical tolls on the Øresund Strait.

The core logic is the same: a country stuck in a key location monetizes its geography.

But the differences are significant. Egypt’s sovereignty over the Suez Canal is grounded in international law; the canal is man-made and part of Egypt’s territory. Hormuz, however, is a natural strait and, under international law, classified as a "strait used for international navigation." According to UNCLOS, coastal states may not charge fees to vessels transiting through such straits.

Iran's response: We did not sign UNCLOS.

A Foreign Policy article on April 7 stated directly: If Iran can transform its wartime temporary fees into a permanent peacetime system, it would be the largest economic geostrategic event in the Middle East since Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal.

After the ceasefire news emerged, Bitcoin rose from around $68,000 to over $72,000. Following FT’s report on Bitcoin toll fees, it surged further to $73,000.

The market is pricing in two things.

An old story: Bitcoin as a safe-haven asset. Since the outbreak of the U.S.-Iran war, Bitcoin has outperformed physical gold, and the term "digital gold" has resurfaced after being quiet for some time.

A new development: Bitcoin as an international settlement tool. A sovereign nation, located at the world’s largest energy chokepoint, is accepting Bitcoin for payment. This is not a scenario outlined in a whitepaper—it’s a country pushed to the brink, discovering that Bitcoin is among the few remaining channels to receive funds outside the U.S. dollar system.

For fifteen years, the crypto community has debated: “What is Bitcoin actually useful for?” Hormoz offered an unexpected answer: When two countries go to war, sanctions are fully activated, SWIFT is cut off, and stablecoins are frozen, Bitcoin remains the last open payment channel.

This use case is realistic, but also quite unattractive.

On April 8, Trump told ABC he called the U.S.-Iran joint toll station a "beautiful thing" and said he wanted to set up a "joint venture." The White House spokesperson immediately clarified that the precondition for a ceasefire is the strait being "immediately, fully, and safely opened, with no tolls." The two statements contradict each other.

More subtly, consider Trump’s own position: his family’s project, World Liberty Financial, has launched the USD-backed stablecoin USD1 and is partnering with Aster DEX to list crude oil futures settled in USD1. Previously, Bloomberg reported that Iran accepts payment methods including USD-backed stablecoins, with USDT and USDC among them. The Trump family’s stablecoin business and Iran’s need to circumvent sanctions intersect in a nuanced way—through the very term “stablecoin.”

FXStreet’s analysis highlights a subsequent risk: if the model of military coercion combined with cryptocurrency payments succeeds in the Strait of Hormuz, similar patterns could emerge in the Strait of Malacca and the Bosporus. The freedom of navigation upheld by the U.S. Navy for the past 80 years cannot be automatically enforced merely by being written on paper. Cryptocurrencies, meanwhile, provide a technological means to circumvent financial sanctions when imposing tolls.

In the 1956 Suez Crisis, Nasser prevailed not because the Egyptian military was stronger than the British-French forces, but because the United States refused to support the invasion. The fait accompli stood. Seventy years later in the Strait of Hormuz, it’s again a matter of political will: how much is the United States willing to pay to reopen the strait?

At this moment, the outlook is not optimistic. The ceasefire has not even lasted 24 hours before Israel launched airstrikes in Lebanon, prompting Iran to once again halt passage through the strait. Maersk says it is still “urgently confirming terms” and dare not dispatch ships. A shipping executive told CNBC bluntly: “We have received no guidance on how to pass through safely.”

The ceasefire may not last more than two weeks. But Iran has already proven one thing: a country cut off from SWIFT, with its U.S. dollar assets frozen and all traditional financial channels severed, has built a tolling system across the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints using Bitcoin and stablecoins, generating potential monthly revenues of $800 million—already with payments received.

The cryptocurrency industry spent fifteen years proving the value of "decentralized payments," and the most compelling proof came not from Silicon Valley startups or Wall Street institutions, but from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in the Persian Gulf.

This was probably not the scenario Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned when writing the whitepaper, but this is the reality of 2026: technology doesn’t discriminate among users.