After the U.S. and Iran agreed to a temporary ceasefire on Tuesday, the Islamic Republic pledged to open up the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow body of water that’s a key bottleneck in the world’s trade of oil. But there’s a catch: Iran signaled it plans to impose a toll on ships passing through the choke point—and have them pay up in crypto.
The prospect of tolls has inflamed President Donald Trump, but it’s still unclear whether the Iranian government is charging fees across the board. Meanwhile, ship traffic through the strait is still at a fraction of its volume since the beginning of the war in late February.
Here’s what we know about the tolls, what we don’t know, and why Iran has likely chosen cryptocurrency as its preferred payment method:
What has Iran said about crypto tolls?
Representatives for the Islamic Republic have stated publicly that they plan to have ships in the Strait of Hormuz pay tolls in digital assets. In early April, the parliament released a plan that said as much, according to Iranian state media.
Separately, Hamid Hosseini, spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, has told multiple outlets that the Iranian military plans to charge oil tankers for passage in crypto.
What cryptocurrencies are Iran collecting?
The comments from Iranian officials come after reports of a more informal system of fees. In early April, Bloomberg said that members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an arm of the state’s military, were charging oil tankers $1 a barrel to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Crypto analytics firm TRM Labs stated in a Wednesday report that Iran’s military has charged ships passing through the strategic choke point up to $2 million since mid-March, accepting payment in a variety of fiat and digital currencies: Chinese yuan, Bitcoin, and potentially the stablecoin USDT. (Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged to real-world assets like the U.S. dollar.)
Still, it’s unclear if Iran is using crypto extensively for toll payments. “This is just an incredibly fast moving situation, really, in the midst of a war,” Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs, told Fortune. “And we are not seeing on-chain evidence today that indicates that toll payments are being made at scale.”
Why would Iran want to use cryptocurrency?
For decades, the U.S. and its allies have imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Iran that largely exclude the government from the world’s financial system. That’s led the Islamic Republic to avoid currencies or banks linked to the U.S.
That includes cryptocurrencies, which are built on financial rails not controlled by any one government. And while the public nature of blockchains makes it possible to trace the movements of Bitcoin and stablecoins, those funds can’t be easily seized. At the same time, Iran has become adept at using chains of digital wallets to obscure crypto funds tied to the regime.
“What we’ve seen from Iran over the last really couple of years is them looking for any way to circumvent the U.S. financial system,” said Redbord. “That means accepting payments for things in Chinese yuan. That means starting to really look to cryptocurrency to accept payments.”
How has Iran used crypto in the past?
Iran’s crypto ecosystem grew to $7.8 billion in 2025, according to a report from crypto analytics firm Chainalysis. And, in the fourth quarter of that year, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accounted for about half of Iran’s total crypto ecosystem.
That’s led the U.S. government to crack down on the Islamic Republic’s attempts to circumvent sanctions. In January, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the crypto exchanges Zedcex and Zedxion for facilitating transactions for the Iranian military. And the Justice Department is probing Iran’s use of crypto exchange Binance to sidestep U.S. sanctions, according to the Wall Street Journal.
