The Bitcoin community is debating whether Iran accepting BTC for tolls on oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz is practical and what it would mean geopolitically. The discussion followed a Financial Times report that Tehran was considering Bitcoin payments for passage fees as a way to circumvent U.S. sanctions.
Subsequent reporting has been inconsistent. Some sources cited by Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at crypto investment firm Galaxy, say payments under consideration might instead be in USD-pegged stablecoins or Chinese yuan.
Advocates for Bitcoin argue stablecoins pose compliance and censorship risks that make them less attractive to sanctioned states. Justin Bechler, a BTC proponent, pointed out that prominent US-dollar stablecoins include blacklist and freeze functions, so issuers can render balances illiquid if addresses are flagged. By contrast, he noted, Bitcoin has no central issuer or built-in freeze mechanism, making it harder for outside authorities to block or reverse payments — a structural reason Iran might favor BTC.
Supporters say accepting Bitcoin for tanker tolls would bolster BTC’s position as a neutral, permissionless settlement layer for cross-border transactions. Critics and analysts, however, warn of operational, liquidity and legal complications if a country tries to collect multi-hundred-thousand- or multi-million-dollar tolls in cryptocurrency.
Thorn estimated tolls could range from about $200,000 to $2 million per ship. The FT quoted a spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union saying vessels would have a ‘few seconds’ to complete payment, language that implies use of the Lightning Network — a Bitcoin layer-2 designed for near-instant transfers without waiting for on-chain confirmations.
But the Lightning Network has practical limits. Thorn noted the largest known Lightning payment to date is around $1 million, and high-value commercial flows at scale remain unproven. A more likely operational approach, he suggested, would be Iranian authorities supplying a QR code or an alphanumeric Bitcoin address for each approved transit, letting ships or their operators complete on-chain or off-chain settlement through custodial services.
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