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Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire
- pavlov 6mo ago”Hosseini said that each tanker must email authorities about its cargo, after which Iran will inform them of the toll to be paid in digital currencies. “He said that the tariff is $1 per barrel of oil, adding that empty tankers can pass freely. “‘Once the email arrives and Iran completes its assessment, vessels are given a few seconds to pay in bitcoin, ensuring they can’t be traced or confiscated due to sanctions,’ Hosseini added.”
- gustavus 6mo agoSo apart from all the geopolitics of it this line is interesting "few seconds to pay in bitcoin, ensuring they can’t be traced or confiscated due to sanctions,’ Hosseini added" Maybe I'm ignorant of Bitcoin but isn't Bitcoin transactions recorded in a public cryptographically signed ledger? Isn't that literally the opposite of "can't be traced"?
- zulux 6mo agoAnd if you knew the manifests (quantity of oil) for the ship, just the value of the bitcount transaction could be used for tracking.
- mbreese 6mo agoOr, if you knew the bitcoin addresses, you could figure out exactly how much oil is being moved. I would think oil data analysts would love to have access to that data (if they don't already).
- Esophagus4 6mo agoIt’s like those podcasters that figure out who’s dating whom by looking through their Venmo. We just need to watch for large transactions with the Iranian flag and boat emojis…
- dragonelite 6mo agoThere a whole industry called on chain analysis that do this sort of work.
- deltoidmaximus 6mo agoAs bitcoin is quite traceable I don't see how this works if you're trying to avoid sanctions. For Iran it probably doesn't matter but for the vessel owners it probably does.
- tomasphan 6mo agoBusiness idea - Iran Bitcoin fee intermediary. Realistically the CIA will handle this for US companies and maybe allies until they figure something out.
- CapricornNoble 6mo agoDidn't Tornado Cash get un-sanctioned recently? Can't you just use that?
- iugtmkbdfil834 6mo agoYes, from sanctions perspective, the vessel owners seem to have more exposure than Iran -- as crazy as it sounds on the surface.
- palata 6mo agoAgreed, but I wonder it if matters in practice. It's not like one can boycott bitcoins by serial number or something, is it?
- polivier 6mo agoKind of: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7966/what-are-tainted-coins-exactly https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7966/what-are-ta...
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- insane_dreamer 6mo agothe issue is the US' ability to freeze USD bank accounts on its soil or pressuring other banks to do the same
- jmclnx 6mo agoCannot get to the article, so: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iran-warns-tankers-theyll-be-sunk-if-they-cross-strait-without-permission-and-demand-bitcoin-fees/ar-AA20qXRD https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iran-warns-tankers-they... What is to stop the ships from lying ? I wonder if Iran will do spot check of some ships to prevent this. And will boarding ships cause Trump to have yet another breakdown ?
- bethekidyouwant 6mo agoLying about their cargo? Can’t lie about the weight … Probably the savings from lying about the nature of the cargo is not worth the risk of exploding..
- onlypassingthru 6mo agoBecause ship displacement is really hard to disguise? It's probably like trying to sneak your friend in to the movies under your overcoat.
- HWR_14 6mo agoOil is heavy. The ship designs are known. You can tell approximately how full a ship is by how deep it sinks into the water/where the waterline is. They can probably consistently lie by a small percentage and Iran let's them get the 3% discount as an acceptable loss.
- NoLinkToMe 6mo agoEven if ship displacement wasn't an observable thing, there's no real reason that empty oil ships enter the strait, and then again leave empty, after having obviously docked at an oil terminal, on any regular basis. Public and observable information makes it trivial to make high-accuracy assessments about the veracity of the claim. And $2m is sufficient budget to finance spot checks, especially given you'd have to apply them to an exceedingly small percentage of ships. A year salary of an average Iranian police guard is about 5k, for context. Plus you can create a scenario where fraud being detected is prohibitively expensive, and may even result in the captain being imprisoned in Iran. I wouldn't expect a lot of lies.
- GeoPolAlt 6mo agoI think this war will be the moment that historians mark as the death of Pax Americana. The US failed to change the Iranian regime, failed to open the strait, and now a previously international waterway will be tolled in a currency other than the dollar. I wish it need not have happened in my time
- churchill 6mo ago[dead]
- pavlov 6mo agoTrump promised the most crypto-friendly US administration ever, but this is probably not what Republicans had in mind.
- cjs_ac 6mo agoThis war will be to the US what the Suez Crisis was to the United Kingdom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
- puelocesar 6mo agoTIL about one more time Israel was invading it's neighbors..
- grumple 6mo agoYou should focus on the part where Egypt blockaded the Suez and Straits of Tiran, which is what actually caused the war.
- Pay08 6mo agoThat's far too hyperbolic. Abject failures don't lead to state or power collapse. Look at how many wars the Romans lost, and far more catastrophically too.
- aurmc 6mo ago
- kinakomochidayo 6mo agoPretty crazy for countries to demand Bitcoin that has no clear plans for quantum. Not to mention security budget issues.
- pavlov 6mo agoIt’s not like Iran plans to keep the Bitcoin. It’s just a way around sanctions.
- scorpionfeet 6mo agoWeren’t sanctions lifted last week?
- tekno45 6mo agoon just oil afaik.
- _DeadFred_ 6mo agoNo https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/08/trump-threatens-tariffs-countries-supplying-weapons-iran-ceasefire.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/08/trump-threatens-tariffs-coun...
- torlok 6mo agoIt's safe to assume nothing has actually changed until there's a signed deal. With Trump it's all just talk.
- sourcegrift 6mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- ratrace 6mo ago[dead]
- wongarsu 6mo agoI was under the impression that they were asking for payment in stablecoins, not bitcoin? Did they change their mind?
- Hendrikto 6mo agoGiven that 99% of stablecoins are USD-denominated, and that the vast, vast majority of those are custodial, Bitcoin makes much more sense for Iran.
- Pay08 6mo agoWith Iran's hyperinflation, why wouldn't USD make sense?
- ultrattronic 6mo agoI think they’re kinda mad at the US at the moment
- Pay08 6mo agoThey're risking another January-like protest if they don't stabilise their economy.
- surgical_fire 6mo agoI think they don't want strengthen USD, nor risk having their assets frozen by sanctions.
- bryceneal 6mo agoTo add more context to what I believe the parent commenter was referring to, the vast majority of USD stablecoins are custodial, meaning the funds can be frozen arbitrarily at any time by the custodian (i.e. Circle). This is why when cyberthreat actors steal millions in USD stablecoins by hacking a protocol or a large wallet, the very first thing they do is convert those stablecoins to something else.
- 6mo ago
- FeloniousHam 6mo agoFinally, the Real World use case for Bitcoin!
- pokstad 6mo agoRansomware payments, speculative trading, now paying off oil pirates!
- OutOfHere 6mo agoI am afraid that soon, actual sea pirates, e.g. in Central and South America, Africa, etc. will start using naval mines in their regional seas, demanding crypto payment from passing ships.
- thatguy0900 6mo agoI'm not sure most people have the strength of conviction in their God to stare down the us navy like Iran does.
- OutOfHere 6mo agoIt doesn't have to be a US Navy ship that they target. They could target anyone else. The mines are intelligent in who they target.
- thatguy0900 6mo agoIf they're dropping mines then the navy will be the targets eventually.
- keybored 6mo agoDo drones need conviction?
- thatguy0900 6mo agoThe person launching them sure does. This scenario reminds me of the time Russian hackers took over a US pipeline a couple years ago then immediately apologized saying they didn't want to cause a international incident and they would vet their targets better in the future. There are not many people who want that kind of heat. Like the first ayatollah is dead and the second is reportedly in a coma. The Iranian government is willing to pay that price and that's why they won. How many pirate leaders do you think are willing to pay their life so that their third of fourth successors can maybe collect a toll? Or how many are like Venezuela and you can kidnap one guy and the whole house folds.
- OutOfHere 6mo agoUnpaywalled alt links: https://beincrypto.com/iran-bitcoin-toll-hormuz-strait-tankers-2/ https://beincrypto.com/iran-bitcoin-toll-hormuz-strait-tanke... https://news.bitcoin.com/report-iran-charges-crypto-and-yuan-tolls-for-strait-of-hormuz-oil-tanker-passage/ https://news.bitcoin.com/report-iran-charges-crypto-and-yuan... https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/first-two-ships-pass-through-strait-hormuz-ceasefire https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/first-two-ships-pass-throug...
- iugtmkbdfil834 6mo agoIt is interesting in several different ways, because I was speculating on how it is being done before current cease fire. Everything seemed to be point to Yuan ( or other non-USD currencies ), which then are more easily settled by vessel owners and likely buried under some non-descript names like fees to be , maybe, questioned later its all done. edit: And it seems I was wrong despite it being my initial thought in terms of used rail.
- logicchains 6mo agoIt's a sad indictment of the RMB that Iran would rather use BTC for bypassing US sanctions.
- nickff 6mo agoIran is already quite dependent on the PRoC as a trading partner; using RMB as their primary currency for these payments would further increase their 'counter-party risk'. That said, RMB exchange-rate manipulation may also be a significant factor in their decision.
- tim333 6mo agoI don't think RMB is freely convertible to hard currency without Chinese permission. Bitcoin largely is.
- belorn 6mo agoDoes this mean ceasefire is now broken? The 10 point plan was to be discussed later in the peace talks, but what was the exact conditions that predicated the ceasefire?
- wodenokoto 6mo agoIsn't it broken with Israel continuing their war against Lebanon?
- jMyles 6mo agoAs best I can tell, the Iranian regime and Sharif both said that they ceasefire included a cease to strikes on Lebanon, Netanyahu explicitly said that it did not, and the Trump admin, Lebanon, and Hezbollah have not yet commented either way. Links to Pakistan and Israel statements here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/8/us-iran-ceasefire-deal-what-are-the-terms-and-whats-next https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/8/us-iran-ceasefire-de...
- GeoPolAlt 6mo agoTrump and Leavitt have both said that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- overfeed 6mo agoIran gets a vote, and ceasefires need belligerents' unanimity, by definition.
- Pay08 6mo agoLebanon has also said that the ceasefire doesn't apply to Hezbollah, since they insist that both them and Israel are at war with Hezbollah, not with each other. The only parties that say it does are Hezbollah and Pakistan. Also, I really wouldn't suggest using aljazeera.
- jmyeet 6mo agoI personally think is the US's Teutoburg Forest moment [1]. Rome was capable of rebuilding legions. After all, they'd done so historically (eg after the Battle of Cannae [2]) but Teutoburg really exposed the rot and dysfunction within the Rome. I personally believe this event will be a turning point in redefining the relationships with Europe, the Gulf states and Israel. Details on this deal are sketchy but it seems like Iran will continue charging a toll for the Strait of Hormuz (of approximately $1/barrel). You hear figures like $2 million but bear in mind that VLCCs/ULCCs can carry 2M+ barrels of oil. Also, it seems like there will be significant sanctions relief. Here's the problem: how does Iran get paid? Normally that would be through international payments systems but the US exerts a lot of control over those and can freeze assets as they've done in the past. Part of the payments under the previous JCPOA [3] were to return money paid to Iran for oil where those payments had been frozen. Russia got locked out of SWIFT after the Ukraine invasion [4] as another example. So I see this as a defensive and potentially temporary move to avoid the risk of asset seizure and freezing should hostilities resume. Iran may well end up with access to international payments systems again in the coming weeks, at which point this could all change. It is interesting that crypto is being used for this but that just goes to the point that the use case for crypto is to bypass laws. That's no different here. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWIFT_ban_against_Russian_banks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWIFT_ban_against_Russian_bank...
- Hendrikto 6mo agoThe point of crypto is to cut out the middleman, to bypass authoritarianism, to bypass censorship, to not have to trust anybody. The US being able to just cut off people from the financial system is seen as very problematic by anyone outside the US.
- SilasX 6mo agoI did a double-take at it being Bitcoin fees, since you'd think they'd want some stablecoin (even if not USD) so as to avoid inheriting the volatility, but no, they want Bitcoin specifically: >“Once the email arrives and Iran completes its assessment, vessels are given a few seconds to pay in Bitcoin, ensuring they can’t be traced or confiscated due to sanctions,” FT reported, citing Hosseini. https://beincrypto.com/iran-bitcoin-toll-hormuz-strait-tankers-2/ https://beincrypto.com/iran-bitcoin-toll-hormuz-strait-tanke...
- cjbgkagh 6mo agoPaid in bitcoins denominated in USD so the price is stable, just a small carry risk while holding.
- mvkel 6mo ago[flagged]
- xeromal 6mo agoWhy would Iran give the US fees?
- grumple 6mo agoBehind the scenes, they may have already conceded to paying Trump off just like the other gulf states.
- damnesian 6mo agoplausible, esp in light of all the things.
- bobomonkey 6mo agoI like Trump, but this could very well be true. He's getting rich off of something.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- timcobb 6mo agoIs this Breitbart comments what's going on here?
- bT3xgGVF 6mo ago[dead]
- oa335 6mo ago“ ABC News’s Jonathan Karl asked Trump if he approved of Iran’s plan to charge vessels a fee for passing through the strait — a key channel through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil is transported. “We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture,” the president told Karl, who shared Trump’s response on social platform X. “It’s a way of securing it — also securing it from lots of other people. It’s a beautiful thing.”” I bet Trump will justify it as compensation for US “security” guarantees to Gulf States. https://thehill.com/policy/international/5821343-trump-us-iran-ceasefire-deal-joint-venture-strait-of-hormuz/ https://thehill.com/policy/international/5821343-trump-us-ir...
- dragonelite 6mo agoThe FT trying to push markets and capital again? If they do everyone can just track their bitcoin transactions..
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- deweller 6mo agoA "few seconds" to pay in bitcoin? So the captain is supposed to be watching for a response via email with his finger hovering over the pay button? Is the recipient address static? Surely they would use unique payment addresses if they have any hope of obfuscating payments. This all sounds more like a TV show script than an actual thought-out plan to me.
- sanskritical 6mo agoPresumably these are lightning invoices, which can resolve in milliseconds.
- HWR_14 6mo agoIs there a limit on how much the lightning network can handle? Those are pretty large transactions.
- ProllyInfamous 6mo agoTransaction fees are based on the complexity of the inputs/outputs, not the value transacted. You are literally paying for the minimum amount of data necessary to prove you own the funded sending-address, paying to write those hashes and amounts into the blockchain. The institution handling this offchaing lightning branch can implement fees in whatever structure you agree to transact, including percentage based. Lightning is just an off-chain out-branch, which will eventually be re-integrated onto the main blockchain (based on its original funding/terms). The benefit of this is that single entities can branch off the main blockchain, which is limited in its total blocksize/capacity. The only limits are those by the handling lightning institution. This differs from bitcoin's main public blockchain, which rewards/creates approximately six blocks /hour, each with a limit of just a couple megabytes.
- HWR_14 6mo agoThere are multiple competing lightning networks? I don't get how the lighting networks prevent double spending then. It seems like a major issue when dealing with multimillion dollar transactions.
- lerp-io 6mo agoIran taking USD bribe instead of obtaining nukes made it worse for them in long run.
- stronglikedan 6mo agoThings couldn't have been worse for the average Iranian before that, so nothing can really make it worse for them.
- fernandopj 6mo agoI'm not sure I follow your logic, but one could argue this campaign with drones and cheaper missiles taught Iran it doesn't even need a nuclear deterrent anymore. Between this and Ukraine, the logic of a nuclear warhead deterrent might be considered a paradigm relic from 20th century.
- konschubert 6mo agoThis is false. If Trump had chosen to nuke Iranian cities, Iran would have had no recourse without a proper nuclear bomb.
- giancarlostoro 6mo agoI would be surprised if they could get it out of their airspace considering their country is heavily monitored. Every target hit was probably known for years and years, their routines and what they do.
- viewtransform 6mo agoIran's nuclear bomb is to take out desalination plants in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. It would be game over for the GCC.
- fernandopj 6mo agoI agree that you are correct in this statement, althought if USA or Israel decided to nuke a country without a MAD recourse, that would be another can of worms. There's multiple reasons no country did that after Hiroshima. Even Russia refrained themselves of doing that in Ukraine after all these years. Allow me to do a slight modification on my assessment: Iran found out they won't need a nuclear deterrent to avoid ANY future aggression; modern, cheap drones and conventional missile loadouts will do just fine. Money they would continue spending on nuclear enrichment can be better spent elsewhere, military.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- mikeyouse 6mo agoFeels like the Trump / Binance situation is under appreciated at the moment... https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/technology/binance-employees-iran-firings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/technology/binance-employ... > People in Iran had gained access to more than 1,500 accounts on the Binance platform over the previous year. About $1.7 billion had flowed from two Binance accounts to Iranian entities with links to terrorist groups, a possible violation of global sanctions. And one of those accounts belonged to a Binance vendor. > After uncovering the transactions, the investigators reported them to top executives, according to company records and other documents reviewed by The New York Times. > Within weeks, Binance fired or suspended at least four employees involved in the investigation, according to the documents and three people with knowledge of the situation. The company cited issues such as “violations of company protocol” related to the handling of client data. [..] > But internal warnings about the Iranian transactions surfaced last year, in the months before President Trump granted a pardon to Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, who had spent four months in federal prison in 2024 for his role in the firm’s crimes. The Trump family’s crypto start-up, World Liberty Financial, has forged close business ties with Binance, and Mr. Zhao was a guest this month at a conference at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- triage8004 6mo agoSmart of them, hardest currency in existence and USD avoided, and no possible issues.
- gslin 6mo agohttps://archive.is/Fz65d https://archive.is/Fz65d
- throw_m239339 6mo agoOh, that's why Bitcoin is going up suddenly now hey???
- lexarflash8g 6mo agoSort of like a troll blocking a bridge and asking for payment to cross but armed with machine guns and mines