According to the Financial Times, on April 8, the Iranian government issued a notice to global shipping companies, requiring all oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz during a two-week US-Iran ceasefire period to pay a Bitcoin-denominated toll fee per barrel as a condition for passage. The notice did not specify an enforcing entity but included a Bitcoin address and a statement that "vessels that do not pay the fee are not guaranteed safe passage."

This marks the first occurrence of a non-sovereign country format transit fee request in the Strait of Hormuz since 1979. The immediate public reaction was, "How much can Iran really collect from this toll fee?" However, upon running the numbers, the answer turns out to be surprisingly small.

$21 Million Daily Floating Past Iran's Doorstep

First, let's calculate the maximum toll fee. According to the latest data released by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) in June this year, the daily oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz in the first half of 2025 was 21 million barrels, with crude oil and condensate accounting for approximately 14.2 million barrels, and the rest being refined products and other petroleum liquids. Based on a $1 toll fee per barrel, fully enforced during the 14-day ceasefire period, the theoretical total is $2.926 billion, averaging $21 million per day. Based on the Bitcoin closing price on April 8 after the ceasefire news of $71,906, that is approximately equivalent to 4,069 Bitcoins.

While Iran nominally collects this money from "passing ships," it effectively collects it from the buyers behind the tankers. According to the same EIA report, in 2024, 84% of the crude oil and condensate exported through Hormuz went to Asia, with China, India, Japan, and South Korea collectively consuming about 69%, which is 14.4 million barrels per day. Europe and the US together account for less than 16%, with the US taking only about 500,000 barrels per day, representing 7% of US crude imports and 2% of total consumption. In other words, if Iran were to itemize this toll fee bill, the recipients would be Asia's refineries and national oil companies.

It is worth noting that the true exporting giant of Hormuz is not Iran but Saudi Arabia, exporting approximately 5.5 million barrels per day, representing 38% of the strait's crude oil exports. Iran's exports go through the same waterway, and they are collecting tolls from their neighbor.

This Money Is a Matter of Days on Iran's Books

Shifting the focus from the "tankers" to the "books," $2.93 billion immediately reveals its scale.

According to two analyses released by the US sanction supervisory body FDD in October and November this year, Iran's crude oil exports peaked at 2.15 million barrels per day in October 2025, with monthly revenues estimated at $39 to $42 billion (based on a 5 to 10% discount off the Brent benchmark), averaging about $1.3 billion per day. By this measure, the theoretical full toll fee of $2.93 billion is equivalent to only 2.3 days of Iran's crude oil export revenue.

The contrast of military expenditure is even more brutal. According to the Iran Open Data Center think tank, Iran's total military expenditure in 2025, by adding the official budget of $12.36 billion to the oil and gas special fund of approximately €11 billion (equivalent to $10.74 billion), amounts to nearly $23 billion. This toll fee can only support the Iranian military's expenses for 4.6 days. Even using a more conservative estimate, if we take the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)'s figure of $7.9 billion for Iran's military expenditure in 2024, the toll fee limit would only cover about 13.6 days of military spending.

Now, let's compare it with the national treasury. According to the Federal Reserve's FRED database, Iran's central bank-calculated foreign exchange reserves in January 2025 were about $33.8 billion. This toll fee is only equivalent to 0.87% of that amount. A more straightforward statement can be found in the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s May 2025 Middle East Economic Outlook, where it is mentioned that for Iran to balance its budget in 2025, oil prices would need to reach $163 per barrel, while the actual oil price is only half of that. In the same report, Iran's GDP growth rate in 2025 is estimated at 0.3%, and inflation has been revised from an initial prediction of 37% at the beginning of the year to 43%. This toll fee is merely a "crumb of an account" that "can't even feed half a month."

This is also why this toll fee should not be understood as "war money." It is an experimental charge by Iran in a state of financial suffocation, in a scale so small that it cannot solve any problems, yet so symbolic that it is enough to cause a global market jolt.

For Seven Years, Unable to Sell Oil, Yet Neighbors' Business Hasn't Stopped

Why did Iran choose this timing and method to collect tolls? The answer lies in a long-underestimated trend.

The left axis of this graph represents Iran's own crude oil exports, which were at a daily average of 2.07 million barrels before the U.S. reinstated sanctions in 2018, dropped to 0.97 million barrels in 2019, and hit a historic low of 0.44 million barrels in 2020 due to the combination of the pandemic and sanctions. According to the U.S. Institute of Peace's Iran Watch column, Iran lost $41.3 billion in export revenue in just 2020. It then gradually climbed back by relying on a gray fleet and offering oil discounts to China, eventually returning to a peak of 2.15 million barrels by October 2025.

The right axis is the total transshipment volume of the same waterway. According to EIA's annual reports, it was 20.5 million barrels per day in 2018, 21 million barrels in 2022, 20 million barrels in 2024, and 20.9 million barrels in the first half of 2025. Over seven years, Iran's own oil has been decreasing from its doorstep, but not a single barrel less has been taken from the neighbor's house. To Iran, this waterway has always been "others' business, my gateway."

This is the historical background of the toll scheme. After three attempts by Iran to self-rescue through oil revenue and three times being sanctioned back to square one, for the first time, it shifted its toll target from "my oil" to "your oil." The US-Iran ceasefire gave it a two-week policy window, whether it can collect is one thing; pricing the right of passage of this waterway itself is a signal release to both oneself and the neighbors.

From the ledger, this looks more like a seven-year overdue bill.

Cryptocurrency is the only conduit to truly pocket this money

Finally, why Bitcoin, not the US Dollar, Renminbi, or Euro?

According to industry analysis platform Brave New Coin's compilation based on data from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) 2025, Iran's Bitcoin mining global hashrate share is approximately 4.2%, ranking fifth globally, just behind the United States, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Canada. This means that Iran's domestically owned hash power itself is a settlement channel independent of SWIFT, where mining machines directly produce transferable assets.

An in-depth investigation published by Asia Times in March of this year reported that the IRGC handled over $3 billion of crypto funds in 2025, including payments to agents, transferring sanctioned oil, and purchasing weapons. According to Chainalysis' 2025 Crypto Crime Report, the total amount of crypto funds received by globally sanctioned entities in 2025 was about $104 billion, a 694% year-on-year increase, driven mainly by Iran. These numbers speak of the same thing: Iran has long regarded cryptocurrency as a second financial mouth, and this channel has been running for three to four years, with ready-made infrastructure, channels, and clearing points.

As for why not a stablecoin that's all the rage? Because regulated stablecoins anchored to the US Dollar like USDT and USDC can be seized, just like the Dollar, they can be frozen by simply knowing Iran's wallet address. This has happened many times in history.

So "Paying Toll with Bitcoin" is not a stance; it is Iran's only conduit for receiving this money directly without going through SWIFT, without going through European or American banks, and without being frozen by intermediary banks. Iran's toll fee for these two weeks, even if received in full, is equivalent to just over two days of oil export revenue. However, it chooses to price it in Bitcoin because any other money simply won't reach the account.