[HN Gopher] Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz d...
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Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire
Author : pavlov
Score : 140 points
Date : 2026-04-08 14:06 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ft.com)
| pavlov wrote:
| _"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 wrote:
| So 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 wrote:
| And if you knew the manifests (quantity of oil) for the ship,
| just the value of the bitcount transaction could be used for
| tracking.
| mbreese wrote:
| Or, 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 wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| There a whole industry called on chain analysis that do this
| sort of work.
| deltoidmaximus wrote:
| As 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 wrote:
| Business idea - Iran Bitcoin fee intermediary. Realistically
| the CIA will handle this for US companies and maybe allies
| until they figure something out.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| Didn't Tornado Cash get un-sanctioned recently? Can't you
| just use that?
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| Yes, from sanctions perspective, the vessel owners seem to
| have more exposure than Iran -- as crazy as it sounds on the
| surface.
| palata wrote:
| Agreed, but I wonder it if matters in practice. It's not like
| one can boycott bitcoins by serial number or something, is
| it?
| polivier wrote:
| Kind of:
| https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7966/what-are-
| ta...
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| the issue is the US' ability to freeze USD bank accounts on
| its soil or pressuring other banks to do the same
| dist-epoch wrote:
| One of Iran's demand for a peace agreement is the removal of
| all sanctions.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Aren't there any chinese or russian bitcoin exchange
| services?
| jmclnx wrote:
| Cannot get to the article, so:
|
| 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 wrote:
| Lying 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 wrote:
| Because 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 wrote:
| Oil 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.
| GeoPolAlt wrote:
| I 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
| pavlov wrote:
| Trump promised the most crypto-friendly US administration ever,
| but this is probably not what Republicans had in mind.
| cjs_ac wrote:
| This war will be to the US what the Suez Crisis was to the
| United Kingdom.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
| puelocesar wrote:
| TIL about one more time Israel was invading it's neighbors..
| grumple wrote:
| You should focus on the part where Egypt blockaded the Suez
| and Straits of Tiran, which is what actually caused the
| war.
| Pay08 wrote:
| That'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.
| 762236 wrote:
| No air war has changed a regime. The US government knows this.
| Trump knows this and never had regime change as an objective.
| Why are you saying that regime change was an objective, and how
| do you think it was going to happen in an air war when no air
| war has caused a regime change before?
| whateveracct wrote:
| Trump was talking about the protests there and that the US
| would help them. And we kept killing Iranian leadership lol.
|
| Why are you taking what the Trump admin says at face value,
| anyways? Are you still a fool after all these years? This is
| like "fool me a 10,000th time" by now haaha
| 762236 wrote:
| What he says matches to reality: that regime change isn't
| possible with an air war. Thus even if you don't listen to
| him, we know from prior experience that regime change is
| highly improbable. Every person educated about these things
| knows that.
| whateveracct wrote:
| The contemplated (and moved!) ground troops for weeks
| lol.
| soco wrote:
| Little correction: Trump has a different objective every
| second day, and at some point there was (also) regime change
| on the menu. Might come again, I don't know.
| ks2048 wrote:
| > Trump knows this
|
| This statement is very rarely true.
| Pay08 wrote:
| No air war has ever tried to change a regime. The fact of the
| matter is, we don't know what will happen next. There could
| very well be a civil war.
| pokstad wrote:
| TBF, Iran is saying an exorbitant price right now, but in
| reality they will need to balance their price with demand to
| bring in the maximum possible revenue. The toll may work out in
| the long run.
| ivell wrote:
| I think the price can only increase. There is not much
| competition for Hormuz. If it is exorbitant now, it can only
| be more expensive later on. The demand for oil is not going
| to go down drastically for quite a few years.
|
| If there was another route, the oil would have found the way.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| In time pipelines can be made, no? 2 million per ship
| already gives a lot of room for exorbitant infrastructure
| projects to break even in the medium term
| 1attice wrote:
| Pipelines take years, even decades, at least here in
| Canada. You'd be surprised at how many billions of
| dollars and person-years of labour you need to get the
| thing turned on.
|
| Five years at 2mil per ship will make Iran rich.
| pas wrote:
| pipelines, railway, etc.
|
| had the US had any real plan to empower the Gulf states
| against Iran there would already be backup routes
| Tostino wrote:
| Pipelines are incredibly vulnerable to being taken
| offline by an inexpensive long-range strike. You can't
| just put them in the middle of a war zone, especially
| when we (the US) have targeted that same type of
| infrastructure first.
| pas wrote:
| sure, as the oil wells and the pumping stations and
| everything not underground, but right now there's not
| even an option to try. (also loss of a pipe section
| compared to the loss of a tanker is much better
| economically, easy to replace, not to mention that
| there's no loss of life, so ultimately it can bear more
| risk even if there's an active conflict.)
| citrin_ru wrote:
| Pipelines are usually buried under the ground. Pumping
| statins could be protected by short range SAM systems. An
| undegraund pipeline can be destroyed by a heavy glide
| bomd (not an option for Iran) but should be relatively
| safe from shahed drones. Iran's ballistic rockets are not
| precise enough to hit a pipeline wihtout spending
| multiple rockets (in which case it would be cheaper to
| repair the pipeline than to produce all these rockets).
| mrguyorama wrote:
| None of those have _near_ the capacity to replace what
| was flowing through the Straight and will not replace the
| Straight for a long time. That 's the whole problem.
|
| If there were viable alternatives to the Straight, the US
| would have attacked Iran decades ago. Every US
| administration has had people in the wings desperate to
| "Fix" the Iran situation, but only Trump was stupid
| enough to try it.
|
| Meanwhile, the actual _production_ is meaningfully
| damaged, and for at least a couple years.
|
| This is an energy crisis.
| rhubarbtree wrote:
| There are already pipelines in the region.
| tantalor wrote:
| The problem is the fee has nothing material to do with the
| straight itself. There are no maintenance costs for the open
| sea. Coordination is also not a big concern, you can tell
| because previously ships were able to pass without incident
| and coordinate among themselves.
|
| Actually, this is extortion. Meaning that it is done under
| threat of violence. Worse yet, the US military may end up
| enforcing this, and collecting on a share of the fees.
|
| It won't take very long for Iran to recoup the damages. After
| that, why keep the fees going? Because it's free money,
| that's why.
|
| The strange this is, if the US and Iran can partner on this,
| that would lead to a weird peace, because they both stand to
| benefit, meanwhile countries that depend on the straight
| (Korea, Japan, etc.) have to pay the bill.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > extortion
|
| not really; you would have to pay to run an oil pipeline
| through another country's territory even if that country
| wasn't bearing the cost of maintaining the oil pipeline
|
| the strait isn't international waters -- it's part of Iran
| and Oman's territorial waters
| citrin_ru wrote:
| For land pipelines thiere no eqauvalent of the United
| Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea according to
| which both Oman and Iran should allow free passage of
| ships. And "normal" path lies on Oman's waters which
| dones't stop Iran from attacking ships there. The strait
| toll is a pure racketeering.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| What does the UN convention says about killing civilians
| and destroying civilian infrastructure?
|
| I think any such pretenses were abandoned right off the
| start.
| ithkuil wrote:
| You make it sound that there are only two sides in this
| story.
|
| Spain, Argentina, Kenya, Indonesia, Kuwait and countless
| other countries haven't bombed any civilian
| infrastructure either and yet they will be affected by
| the aggressive posture around international maritime
| traffic.
|
| Are you expecting that Iran will not apply the fee to
| ships that sell oil Malesia or South Africa?
| surgical_fire wrote:
| For the Iranian perspective it doesn't matter.
|
| Their only defense against being bombed was using their
| geopolitical position to its advantage. Their own
| civilian infrastructure was bombed by the US-Israel axis,
| with the support of the Gulf states.
|
| I fully expect Iran to apply fees on every ship going
| through, and they should.
|
| Spain, Argentina, Kenya, Indonesia and countless other
| countries are paying for the aggressive and reckless
| actions of the US-Israel axis.
|
| That's the situation of the country where I live btw. I
| don't blame Iran for using the weapons at their disposal
| for survival, I blame the rogue states that attacked Iran
| and forced their hand. Let's not forget that Iran could
| have done it at any time in the past decades, and showed
| restraint in doing so, even with all the sanctions and
| Israeli aggression.
| orwin wrote:
| I don't think this count as open sea. The rule is 12 miles
| from the coast (12 nautical miles btw, i don't know what it
| is in freedom units). i'm pretty sure the strait is
| narrower than that at the place where the toll is paid (if
| you count both side, i.e less than 24 miles Between Oman's
| peninsula i forgot the name of, and Hormuz/Qeshm islands).
|
| So basically, Iran say "here, you have to pass through our
| or Oman's waters, we will let you, but please pay a toll
| for the derangement, that we will share with Oman."
| ux266478 wrote:
| > There are no maintenance costs for the open sea.
|
| There are massive maintenance costs for the open sea with
| how we utilize it. Maritime security and policing,
| navigational infrastructure, weather reporting, radio
| repeaters, international bureaucracy, etc.
|
| Global maritime trade is extremely costly. It's simply
| hidden behind opaque public spending on things you don't
| think about. In all likelihood it's a sunk cost that would
| ballpark around a few hundred billion dollars annually,
| invisible money spent just to keep things running at the
| scale and reliability that they do.
|
| Now the maritime traffic passing through the Strait of
| Hormuz may only partially overlap with this spending, but
| people greatly overestimate just how "cheap" maritime
| activity actually is.
| ux266478 wrote:
| Very Large Crude Carriers carry ~2 million barrels of oil.
| Ultra Large Crude Carriers double that. If oil went down to
| $50/Bbl, that $2 million fee amounts to a ~2% tax per ship,
| given their cargo capacity. It's not particularly exorbitant,
| especially given that the entire reason they proposed this
| toll was to fund their rebuilding efforts (Americans and
| Israelis did a lot of damage that's been under-reported and
| ignored)
|
| This conflict has been an interesting case of watching mass
| hysteria interact with propaganda in the newform, rapid pace
| of media that exists in the internet age. The amount of wild
| conjecture, speculation, misinformation is the most extreme
| I've ever seen it, eclipsing even the 6 months of nonsense
| that was spurred on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
| pokstad wrote:
| If that's right, 2% indeed doesn't sound bad. Especially
| since it's supposed to be split with Oman.
| gwern wrote:
| The 2% is the camel's nose. They are establishing that they
| tax the Strait traffic and there is no longer freedom of
| navigation. Once it is a done deal, the deal will be
| altered...
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| AFAIK they only let two ships pass before closing it again
| due to Israeli strikes on Lebanon, so in effect the strait is
| still closed and likely to remain so.
| bamboozled wrote:
| I read Lebanon wasn't part of the deal, so...
| keybored wrote:
| I think it's weird that you imply that it is because the
| American regime failed to change the Iranian regime. They (lead
| by Israel or not) illegally invaded a country.
|
| It's just Pax for those parts of the world that America and its
| allies are not invading (and other non-allied examples like
| Russia invading Ukraine).
|
| But a typical top-comment about how America Did a Bad Thing
| Which Ruined The Good American-lead Times.
| jMyles wrote:
| > It's just Pax for those parts of the world that America and
| its allies are not invading
|
| Aren't you making the very point you purport to refute?
| What's so different about this than Rome circa 50 BC? They
| even invaded Persia!
| Havoc wrote:
| I'd say there is a credible case for saying the vote for 2nd
| round of trump was the turning point. By that point is was
| already pretty well established that he isn't fit yet that's
| what the public wanted.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| The democrats deserve a fair share of the blame for that just
| for their having created and maintained the two-party duopoly
| along with the Republicans. At the very least its not the
| voters fault if the only viable alternative to the
| Republicans is constantly rigging (or in this case straight-
| up _bypassing_ ) their own primaries to put corrupt party
| insiders at the forefront.
| saulpw wrote:
| Sure, everyone deserves some share of the blame, but it's
| like 10% for the Ds and 90% Rs. We can't keep talking like
| it's 50/50, that's how people become completely
| disenchanted with politics and don't even bother to vote.
| wongarsu wrote:
| The root cause is the first-past-the-post voting system
| that ensures a two-party system.
|
| But for the party with the most responsibility for blowing
| it all up I'd like to nominate Rupert Murdoch. Most visibly
| with Fox News, but really his entire media empire
| euroderf wrote:
| > The root cause is the first-past-the-post voting system
| that ensures a two-party system.
|
| Hear, hear.
|
| I'm rooting for the fast uptake of STV across the US.
| amavect wrote:
| Yet another reminder that we need approval voting, or
| even STAR voting, for single-winner elections.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jfHPFQU
| https://www.equal.vote/approval
| https://www.equal.vote/beyond_rcv_zine
| Incipient wrote:
| I can't believe that the toll will actually be paid - it would
| turn Iran into an INSANELY wealthy superpower and easily give
| them the funds to hugely increase their availability to fund
| groups like hezbollah etc.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| I read that it could add up to $80 billion/year, at most.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| You forgot that now Iran will become a nuclear state.
|
| An American Iranian expert which studied this region for 20
| years predicted that Iran will do a nuclear test in September,
| ahead of the mid-term elections. We'll see.
| Pay08 wrote:
| For all intents and purposes, they have been a nuclear state
| for 30 years.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The toll is not going to happen. Iran has plenty of demands
| regarding the ceasefire and will get almost none of them.
| kinakomochidayo wrote:
| Pretty crazy for countries to demand Bitcoin that has no clear
| plans for quantum. Not to mention security budget issues.
| pavlov wrote:
| It's not like Iran plans to keep the Bitcoin. It's just a way
| around sanctions.
| scorpionfeet wrote:
| Weren't sanctions lifted last week?
| tekno45 wrote:
| on just oil afaik.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| No
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/08/trump-threatens-tariffs-
| coun...
| wongarsu wrote:
| I was under the impression that they were asking for payment in
| stablecoins, not bitcoin? Did they change their mind?
| Hendrikto wrote:
| Given 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 wrote:
| With Iran's hyperinflation, why wouldn't USD make sense?
| ultrattronic wrote:
| I think they're kinda mad at the US at the moment
| Pay08 wrote:
| They're risking another January-like protest if they
| don't stabilise their economy.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I think they don't want strengthen USD, nor risk having
| their assets frozen by sanctions.
| bryceneal wrote:
| To 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.
| wslh wrote:
| That would be very risky for Iran because the top stablecoins
| could be freezed. They are centralized.
| vunderba wrote:
| I've heard a lot of discussion about them accepting payments in
| Chinese yuan. I wonder if there's a stablecoin pegged to it.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| China issued a stable coin about five years ago. It is used
| for all retail payments (I believe, small value, payments for
| govt employee salaries, etc). Somewhat bizarrely, it is
| significantly more privacy-protecting than payments in the
| West.
|
| Quite funny to read comments from people asking what use is
| crypto. Can tell they have probably never left West Virgina.
|
| Don't think it would be that useful for Iran though as they
| are already RMB earners, and RMB financial markets are still
| a bit questionable (there is depth, I don't think anyone
| knows why this depth exists or what it is actually for, just
| state-linked banks moving paper between themselves
| furiously).
| dragonelite wrote:
| Yeah pretty since the start of the conflict there was talk of
| companies could use Chinese yuan to get an pass through. It
| also makes more sense they would use the Chinese yuan the
| West can track or block those transactions.
|
| Not only that the Chinese Yuan is probably more interesting
| given they can buy more things with it from China things like
| consumer tech/products, chemicals and rare earths for weapon
| systems etc.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| Tether has one on ethereum but same problem if the US gov
| tell tether to whip their address it is game over.
|
| China has probably one on another blockchain but I am not
| sure how easy it is to exit their ecosystem or convert it to
| anything else...
| arduanika wrote:
| No. Welcome to the petrobitcoin economy.
|
| Edit: Piecing together from other comments, it sounds like
| these tolls are denominated in USD ($1 per barrel), but as an
| implementation detail, they're charging in BTC as the
| instrument of choice, not a stablecoin.
|
| They phrase the tolls in USD "so the price is stable", and
| since the whole transaction is quick, BTC entails "just a small
| carry risk while holding". They sidestep the stablecoin
| technology, which is "risky for Iran because the top
| stablecoins could be freezed. They are centralized."
|
| The latter comment was downvoted, possibly for paranoia, but
| Iran can't afford not to be paranoid. The major stablecoins at
| least claim to be custodied in Western institutions in a quasi-
| compliant-ish manner. If the USG started strong-arming Cantor,
| and so forth, who knows where that would end. Iran would much
| rather live with a tiny taste of BTC price volatility.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47692874
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47691369
|
| So my read of this is:
|
| - Iran is threading the needle, working within the limited
| options they have in a US-dominated world economy.
|
| - The death of the petrodollar is slightly exaggerated here,
| although it's a small symbolic step, and obviously the broader
| war is going to have implications for US hegemony.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| I believe the only stablecoin that is "uncensorable" is the old
| MakerDAO DAI (pegged to USD with vaults overcollaterised with
| other tokens). Not sure if there is a lot of liquidity left.
|
| Its successor USDS has implemented all the mechanisms to censor
| some addresses but if I remember correctly this hasn't been
| activated yet.
|
| All the other ones: USDC, USDT, EURC and the ruble one can be
| whipped out easily. So more risky for them than good old
| dollars.
|
| Please correct me if I missed something.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| You can issue any stablecoin via bitcoins taproot asset
| protocol. Transfer even over lightning. Thus it is
| uncensorable. USDT has this enabled.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| Indeed, very interesting !
|
| Apparently it is very recent [0]
|
| Now I am still wondering, does the taproot asset protocol
| make it really uncensorable? because on Ethereum an address
| can be blacklisted by Tether and the USDT frozen (through
| the ERC20 contract I believe).
|
| And I would be a bit surprise that Tether, which is more
| and more integrated and compliant with regulations, would
| start minting USDT on a system that doesn't have an asset
| freezing mechanism...
|
| - [0]
| https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/03-31-2026-tether-
| rei...
| FeloniousHam wrote:
| Finally, the Real World use case for Bitcoin!
| pokstad wrote:
| Ransomware payments, speculative trading, now paying off oil
| pirates!
| OutOfHere wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| I'm not sure most people have the strength of conviction in
| their God to stare down the us navy like Iran does.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| It 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 wrote:
| If they're dropping mines then the navy will be the
| targets eventually.
| keybored wrote:
| Do drones need conviction?
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| The 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.
| staplers wrote:
| Things that have never happened with USD. Glad we have a
| truly clean pure money that is incorruptible unlike bitcoin.
| SilasX wrote:
| Iran is a recognized national government, not a pirate.
|
| Oh crud I just opened a can of worms with that, didn't I?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_and_Emperors
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQBWGo7pef8
| OutOfHere wrote:
| Cryptocurrency has had many legal real world uses cases. It is
| used heavily in prediction markets. Serving as an inflation-
| resistant store of value that is orthogonal to gold also is an
| implicit real world use case. Permissionless and easy
| international transfer of funds between individuals has been
| the biggest real world use. It's not only for collecting and
| trading. Obviously, those wanting to suppress it will keep
| finding excuses.
| GJim wrote:
| I confess I'm not entirely sure if this is satire or if you
| are a true believer. Well done!
| nprz wrote:
| Lol at the downvotes. People get so mad if you say you prefer
| one imaginary ledger over another.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| The same people have no idea what's coming for them even
| when it's in their face as with the posted news article. If
| the US doesn't act now to restore the use of USD in Hormuz,
| it's the beginning of the end of the for the USD as a
| currency for international trade.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Defending crypto as legitimate by adding 'it's also useful
| for gambling to get around regulation' is wild.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| Some bets are less gambling than others. For example, if
| you bet "no" on the US leaving NATO this year, just how
| much of a gamble is that? There are many such bets, some a
| lot less uncertain than this example. Anything can happen
| in today's environment as yesterday's ceasefire showed, but
| in aggregate, statistics and commonsense are not lost. The
| regulation you speak of is oppressive, legally
| unchallenged, and is considered undesirable by people who
| appreciate personal freedom.
| user____name wrote:
| Should just pay in pure cocaine, cut out the crypto middlemen.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| Unpaywalled alt links:
|
| https://beincrypto.com/iran-bitcoin-toll-hormuz-strait-tanke...
|
| https://news.bitcoin.com/report-iran-charges-crypto-and-yuan...
|
| https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/first-two-ships-pass-throug...
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| It 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 wrote:
| It's a sad indictment of the RMB that Iran would rather use BTC
| for bypassing US sanctions.
| nickff wrote:
| Iran 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.
| belorn wrote:
| Does 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 wrote:
| Isn't it broken with Israel continuing their war against
| Lebanon?
| jMyles wrote:
| As 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-
| de...
| GeoPolAlt wrote:
| Trump and Leavitt have both said that Lebanon is not part
| of the ceasefire
| overfeed wrote:
| Iran gets a vote, and ceasefires need belligerents'
| unanimity, by definition.
| Pay08 wrote:
| Lebanon 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.
| bradleyankrom wrote:
| I've found Al Jazeera's (English) coverage of the region
| to be informative. YMMV.
| Pay08 wrote:
| Perhaps informative as a study of institutional bias and
| government interference.
| bradleyankrom wrote:
| No? Sources? It's possible that Qatar's government has
| some editorial control over the Arabic content, but my
| understanding is that the English operations are
| separate.
| Pay08 wrote:
| It's the same company, English operations can't be
| separate.
|
| https://factually.co/fact-checks/media/should-i-trust-al-
| jaz...
|
| https://apnews.com/article/b39b94d6847f4ee6acafd6ad2da7e9
| 63
| M_bara wrote:
| Honestly, it's a good counter to get both sides of the
| coin. At the moment you'll find BBC, CNN, NYT et al on
| one end and Al Jazeera on the other. I also look at DW
| for a more balanced approach. Don't consume from one
| camp!
| Pay08 wrote:
| Fair call on CNN and DW, but the NYT has always been at
| least somewhat aligned with Al Jazeera, and the BBC
| switches around with whatever the current government is.
| overfeed wrote:
| > NYT has always been at least somewhat aligned with Al
| Jazeera
|
| Hard disagree: the NYT adopts a weird passive voice that
| goes against its house style, along with headlines with
| no subject when it comes to events in Gaza[1]. Al Jazeera
| consistently names the doers of the verbs.
|
| 1. Once you're aware of it, it becomes impossible not to
| notice. It is the Wilhelm scream of news coverage.
| alphager wrote:
| Just be aware that DW is literally government propaganda.
| If you want news from a German perspective, it's great;
| however its purpose is explicitly to give the German
| governments POV.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Al Jazeera is a private news organization mostly funded
| by the state of Qatar.
|
| It is not "the other side of the coin". Qatar is very
| much on the US side, and opposite to Iran.
|
| Their reporting is fine, and I typically find it more
| informative than the US news sources. But let's not
| pretend you are getting the Iranian side of the deal
| here.
|
| Particularly, my favorite news sources for the war is,
| oddly enough, FT
| freehorse wrote:
| Out of curiosity, which news sources do you
| recommend/advocate for covering the middle east?
| fernandopj wrote:
| Iran is ATM saying it closed the Strait again, implied that
| it will wait until Israel stand down at least.
|
| Even if USA insist on Israel-Hezbollah (and so Lebanon) be
| kept apart from any deal to end their war in Iran, it would
| still mean a terrible strategic and diplomatic disaster
| between USA and Israel, because Israel Gov' will be left
| with two terrible scenarios:
|
| 1) Trump Admin' will concede to Iran they'd be leaving the
| region and leaving Israel to defend itself alone, because
| the Hormuz being open for business and the Gulf states
| being spared would be enough; or
|
| 2) USA will have to resume hostilities, meaning
| domestically Trump will have to explain the US Military is
| obliged to continue the war effort for as long as Israel
| want.
|
| IMHO don't see how Israel-US can politically survive those
| two scenarios.
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| > IMHO don't see how Israel-US can politically survive
| those two scenarios.
|
| Is that such a bad thing?
| bamboozled wrote:
| Probably for the actual innocent people who live in
| Israel , yes
| spaghetdefects wrote:
| Israel is a modern day Nazi Germany. I wouldn't call
| anyone there over the age of 18 "innocent".
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Maybe Iran will avoid Palestinian parts.
| belorn wrote:
| Definitively if they agreed to it as part of the ceasefire.
| What did each part actually agree to when they agreed to a
| ceasefire? There doesn't seem to be much concrete information
| about that part.
| vrganj wrote:
| I think Trump and the Iranians agreed to two different
| ceasefires and now both pretend they won.
| belorn wrote:
| Seem now like both are also saying that the other side
| has now broken the ceasefire. Two different ceasefires
| are not a very stable ground.
| TitaRusell wrote:
| You can watch Nixon's speeches on YouTube. He certainly
| tried to spin the Vietnam war...
|
| But ultimately Nixon was right. America getting out of
| Vietnam was a good thing.
| PowerElectronix wrote:
| I think only the US is not bombing anyone for the time being.
| I think, and hope, they will slowly pull out of there and not
| fuck up the status quo any further.
| bamboozled wrote:
| The US can't just walk away now because the straight is not
| open / secure for trade ships.
| geysersam wrote:
| They can. It would be a defeat, but at least it would be
| a less costly defeat than Afghanistan.
| ndiddy wrote:
| The ceasefire agreement was mediated by Shehbaz Sharif, the
| prime minister of Pakistan. He announced yesterday that the
| US and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire everywhere, including
| Lebanon. They agreed to base negotiations on Iran's 10-point
| proposal. [1] Trump released his own statement that the US
| was agreeing to the ceasefire, again using Iran's 10-point
| proposal as a basis. [2] Benjamin Netanyahu announced that
| Israel would comply with the ceasefire. [3] Hours later,
| Israel carried out a brutal strike on dense commercial and
| residential areas in Southern Lebanon without warning,
| killing at least 254 people and injuring more than 1,000
| others. [4] The IRGC announced that if Trump didn't rein in
| Israel, Iran would exit the ceasefire arrangement. [5] Trump
| then told a reporter that Lebanon was not in the deal,
| contradicting Sharif's statement. [6] In response, Iran's
| speaker of the parliament released a statement outlining how
| the US had violated three of Iran's 10 points and that he
| viewed a bilateral ceasefire as now being unreasonable. [7]
|
| [1] https://x.com/CMShehbaz/status/2041665043423752651
|
| [2] https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1163657967
| 133...
|
| [3] https://x.com/IsraeliPM/status/2041714151374856232
|
| [4] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/8/hundreds-of-
| casualti...
|
| [5] https://x.com/Tasnimnews_EN/status/2041886432239788297
|
| [6] https://x.com/ElizLanders/status/2041878299454955640
|
| [7] https://x.com/mb_ghalibaf/status/2041943537386958858
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| No - the Iranian's didn't say they were letting ships through
| for free
| bluGill wrote:
| too early to say. You always ask for more than you can possibly
| get in these things so that you have something to compromise on
| (it is stupid but that is how that game is played)
| varispeed wrote:
| There was never going to be a ceasefire. It was just Taco
| Tuesday and yet another market manipulation day. Republicans
| and Democrats ruled by whoever has original Epstein files are
| just filling their boots.
| testing22321 wrote:
| Israel are still murdering civilians as fast as they can spend
| US taxpayer dollars.
| cheriot wrote:
| I suspect more fighting in Lebanon means less oil through
| Hormuz. Iran kept its definition of "open" vague. Everyone is
| keeping the pressure up during negotiations.
| kilgoresalmon wrote:
| Maybe I'm just cynical but I have to assume someone will test
| the extent Iran can hold them to a payment if it doesn't want
| to stop maintaining the terms of the ceasefire to back up the
| demand?
|
| (Edit- missing negative)
| cheriot wrote:
| They've blown up several ships so which ship owner will
| test them? Spend $1m on a transit fee or risk $90m on a new
| tanker.
| kilgoresalmon wrote:
| Is the US seriously going to side with Iran on a missing
| payment? Assuming not, is the value of the ceasefire more
| than $1m for Iran if a ship slyly doesn't pay or the few
| million if one starts a trend? As I said I might be
| cynical but I see layered games of chicken where some
| people are surprisingly risk tolerant..
| overfeed wrote:
| Iran's terms are all ships transiting the strait have to
| coordinate with its military. One would assume they are
| monitoring ship movements, and know which ones are
| complying and which ones are not.
|
| The US doesn't need to "side with Iran" on anything: ship
| captains, owners and insurers are free to gamble their
| ships and payloads against Iran's resolve and strike
| capabilities, my assumption is they like to
| predictability make money, and not losing customer's
| billion-dollar payloads is part of that.
|
| Having your ship blown up won't guarantee the US will
| consider the ceasefire violated, history is littered with
| post-armistice engagements and deaths.
| kilgoresalmon wrote:
| All very reasonable.. But plenty of odd stuff happened in
| maritime during covid and plenty of odd stuff related to
| ghost fleet.. My point is not that Exon is going to save
| a million my point is that it is an interesting way that
| I think the cease fire would come to an end if it became
| a stable one on other fronts. I.e. the US doesn't have to
| choose based on anything but what is expedient to it
| wanting an end to the cease fire, a boat may be from the
| right country with the wrong organizational finances for
| the mounting costs so far, and so on..
| rurp wrote:
| What's the incentive for a ship captain to risk this? Even
| if they're more confident than almost everyone else that
| it's a bluff and think there's a 95% chance Iran does
| nothing, a 5% chance of you and your crew being incinerated
| is a crazy risk to take.
|
| Would you go to your normal job tomorrow if someone who has
| a history of carrying out threats has threatened to kill
| you for it?
| kilgoresalmon wrote:
| You can't imagine someone who would go to that job simply
| because the owner hired a bouncer and they have a
| different faith in authority or really mean looking
| bouncers than you?
|
| I can spend 10 minutes looking at demographics and tell
| you the world is not explainable if the measuring stick
| is my own risk tolerances.
| jmyeet wrote:
| I 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
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal
|
| [4]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWIFT_ban_against_Russian_bank...
| Hendrikto wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| I 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-tanke...
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Paid in bitcoins denominated in USD so the price is stable,
| just a small carry risk while holding.
| dragonelite wrote:
| The FT trying to push markets and capital again? If they do
| everyone can just track their bitcoin transactions..
| deweller wrote:
| A "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 wrote:
| Presumably these are lightning invoices, which can resolve in
| milliseconds.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Is there a limit on how much the lightning network can
| handle? Those are pretty large transactions.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| Transaction 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 wrote:
| There 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.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > So the captain is supposed to be watching for a response via
| email with his finger hovering over the pay button?
|
| no, mate
| triceratops wrote:
| Is that a friendly response to the question, or are you
| saying it's actually the captain's second-in-command who
| watches the email?
| Xx_crazy420_xX wrote:
| Why would you want to obfuscate payments if you can track how
| many ships entered the gulf using transponders? Regarding money
| laundering, you use Tornado Cash or Monero
| lancewiggs wrote:
| WSJ reports they can pay in Chinese yuan instead of Bitcoin.
| bodiekane wrote:
| The payments are going to a government. They're not using
| bitcoin to hide the payments, they're using it because
| receiving USD or Euros or whatever would mean that a hostile
| government could seize the funds from the bank.
|
| The tracking is unique though. I don't know who had the $20 in
| my wallet before me or what series of payments it was a part
| of, but crypto has the curious property that over time,
| essentially all crypto money will have at some point passed
| through wallets associated with controversial entities or
| transactions.
| lerp-io wrote:
| Iran taking USD bribe instead of obtaining nukes made it worse
| for them in long run.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Things couldn't have been worse for the average Iranian before
| that, so nothing can really make it worse for them.
| fernandopj wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| This is false. If Trump had chosen to nuke Iranian cities,
| Iran would have had no recourse without a proper nuclear
| bomb.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Iran'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 wrote:
| I 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.
| xnyan wrote:
| A large segment of the Iranian political class bet their
| reputations on the nuclear non-proliferation deal with the US
| in 2015. They've all now been utterly discredited and the
| hardliners proven correct in all of their predictions.
|
| They can look at Ukraine who bitterly regrets giving up their
| nuclear weapons, or North Korea, seemingly invulnerable despite
| being the most pariah of pariah states.
|
| From the perspective of the Iranian state, it would be idiotic
| and irresponsible not to try to make a nuclear weapon in these
| conditions.
| ReflectedImage wrote:
| "From the perspective of the Iranian state" Well you say that
| but they have got a non-nuclear nuke equivalent in the form
| of kamikaze drones.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| That didn't keep them from getting bombed for a month, and
| their senior leadership all killed. It just let them punch
| back a little bit. Not an equal amount, just a little bit.
|
| So, no, not a "nuke equivalent".
| sumedh wrote:
| > North Korea, seemingly invulnerable
|
| Because of China not because of the nukes.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Feels like the Trump / Binance situation is under appreciated at
| the moment...
|
| 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._
| triage8004 wrote:
| Smart of them, hardest currency in existence and USD avoided, and
| no possible issues.
| gslin wrote:
| https://archive.is/Fz65d
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| Oh, that's why Bitcoin is going up suddenly now hey???
| rasz wrote:
| No. Afaik only _two_ ships crossed in last 24 hours meaning its
| all idle speculaion.
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