Ever since the ink dried on the ceasefire, Iran has been making clear it has its own interpretation of the deal. That interpretation, apparently, involves a cryptocurrency tollbooth at the world’s most critical oil chokepoint.
“There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now. That is not the agreement we have!”
In a separate post, he pushed back on reports that Iran was winning, listing what the U.S. had destroyed.
“Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti Aircraft apparatus is nonexistent, Radar is dead, their Missile and Drone Factories have been largely obliterated along with the Missiles and Drones themselves and, most importantly, their longtime ‘Leaders’ are no longer with us, praise be to Allah!” He signed off as “President DONALD J. TRUMP.” The “praise be to Allah” is now a recurring feature of his Iran posts.
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Iran’s plan, confirmed by Hamid Hosseini, spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, calls for ships to pay $1 per barrel of oil aboard in cryptocurrency. “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 Financial Times.
Crypto analytics firm TRM Labs reported that Iran’s military has already charged ships passing through the strait up to $2 million since mid-March, accepting payment in Chinese yuan, Bitcoin and potentially the stablecoin USDT.
Trump’s initial reaction was to threaten Iran. His second reaction was considerably more creative. When ABC News asked him about the tolls, Trump said: “We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It’s a way of securing it – also securing it from lots of other people. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei added to the confusion, saying Iran would bring “the management of the Strait of Hormuz into a new stage” during negotiations, and declared Iran the “definite victor” of the war.
The energy consequences have spread well beyond the Gulf. The conflict has disrupted supplies of liquefied natural gas, aluminium, cooking gas for India, helium for Asia’s chipmakers, diesel for farmers and jet fuel for airlines. Oil prices remain just below $100 a barrel, roughly 50% above pre-war levels.
Japan, dependent on the Gulf for 95% of its oil, announced it would release an additional 20 days of emergency reserves starting in May.
Between 100 and 120 commercial vessels passed through the strait daily before the war. By the week of March 30, that number had recovered to just 72 for the entire week, still 90% below normal volumes. The strait is technically open in the same way a store is technically open when the door is locked but there is a sign in the window.
One analyst noted a particularly pointed irony: if Iran demanded payment in USD1, the stablecoin launched by the Trump family-affiliated World Liberty Financial, “the President of the United States would have a financial incentive to lift sanctions and allow them to charge whatever tolls they want.” Nobody has suggested this officially. Yet.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
