Iran is demanding that oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz make toll payments in the form of cryptocurrency, according to a new report from the Financial Times. The report cites Iran Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union spokesperson Hamid Hosseini. It follows previous reporting on Iran’s use of crypto for such payments by Bloomberg last week, which was based on anonymous sources. While the previous reporting focused on Iran’s preference for stablecoins, like Tether’s USDT or the Trump family’s USD1, the FT specifically mentions bitcoin as an option.
Vessels have been told to email Iranian authorities prior to passage through the area with details regarding their cargo. Iranian authorities will then respond with a quote for passage through the toll to be paid in digital currency. Pricing is said to be set at $1 per barrel of oil.
“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 told the FT.
This latest reporting follows the ceasefire deal that was struck between Iran and the U.S. on Tuesday night, as President Trump’s allegedly final deadline for reaching such a deal approached. However, the deal is now hanging in the balance, as Iran has once again halted vessels in the Strait of Hormuz after an Israeli attack in Lebanon.
The mention of bitcoin by Hosseini is particularly notable, as the previous reporting from Bloomberg only mentioned stablecoins in terms of the types of crypto assets that would be accepted for toll payments. Notably, stablecoins like USDT and Circle’s USDC include backdoors for the blocking of payments and seizure of assets, which could make them less suitable for these sorts of frictionless, uncontrollable payments amidst the War in Iran. The Bloomberg report also indicated the Chinese yuan was another option for toll payments. Bitcoin, of course, has no centralized issuer or third-party processor, and payments made are resistant to interference from third parties.
That said, Iran has been known to use both bitcoin and stablecoins in the past. A report from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic earlier this year indicated that the U.S. embrace of stablecoins via the GENIUS Act can be a double-edged sword, as the Central Bank of Iran had acquired around $507 million in USDT to support the Iranian rial and avoid sanctions. However, the Iranian people have also taken advantage of bitcoin’s completely decentralized nature amidst economic crackdowns in the country, as indicated by the massive spike in withdrawals from domestic exchanges to the Bitcoin network during nationwide protests and unrest at the beginning of the year.
While bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative had been largely dismissed after its underperformance during increasing geopolitical tension around the world, particularly with the situation involving Greenland, the cryptocurrency outperformed physical gold in the early days of the War in Iran and has generally held up throughout the conflict. In addition to the revitalization of the digital gold narrative, the use of bitcoin for toll payments in the Strait of Hormuz indicates the cryptocurrency may also hold promise as a medium of exchange for international trade when trust between various nation-states has broken down.
Notably, the bitcoin price spiked from roughly $68,000 to around $72,000 once it became clear a deal would be found between the U.S. and Iran last night and saw further gains following FT’s reporting on bitcoin-denominated toll payments this morning.
