Hidden financial warfare? Iran uses stablecoins to collect tolls through the Strait

Byline: Mach, Foresight News

On April 2, at a routine press conference in Tehran, Garib Abadi, Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran, publicly confirmed that all ultra-large oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz must pay a toll to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and that this explicitly excludes dollar settlement channels. This statement formally institutionalizes rumors that had previously circulated in the shipping industry—Iran is no longer content to use traditional tools in geopolitical games, but is instead converting control of the strait into a financial experiment aimed at challenging dollar hegemony.

The rollout speed of the fee mechanism exceeded market expectations.

Citing internal documents from within the IRGC Navy, Bloomberg reported that the system completed technical deployment by the end of March. Iran has only two ways to receive the tolls this time: RMB remittance by wire, or dollar settlement via decentralized networks using stablecoins.

Iran’s customs authorities set up a dedicated cryptocurrency exchange window on Qeshm Island to ensure that funds are quickly converted into rials after they are credited, or transferred to overseas accounts.

This arrangement was designed with precision.

Conventional international shipping settlements rely on the SWIFT network and the correspondent banking system. Any transaction involving Iran triggers the U.S. Treasury’s secondary sanctions. Meanwhile, the combination of China’s cross-border payments system and public-chain networks builds a parallel channel that bypasses dollar monitoring.

According to statistics from London shipping brokerage Braemar, at least two oil tankers flying unknown flags had completed RMB payments and safely passed through the Strait by the end of March. Iran’s parliament’s National Security Committee, in the Hormuz Strait Transit Management Act passed on March 30, further provided domestic legal backing for this mechanism.

Worth noting is that Iran also prices differentiated fees for vessels based on the degree of geopolitical alignment.

Citing information from sources, Bloomberg reported the oil-charging standards for the Strait of Hormuz: starting at $0.5 per barrel, divided into five tiers depending on the countries’ relationships.

The first tier is special pricing for allies: China and Russia, $0.5–$0.7 per barrel. There are dedicated green lanes—regular advance reporting allows free passage.

The second tier is friendly partners, including India and Pakistan, at $0.8–$0.9 per barrel.

The third tier is neutral countries—African countries, Southeast Asia, and Latin America—at $1 per barrel. It requires declarations; after checks confirm there are no hostile assets, clearance is granted.

The fourth tier is high-risk countries: those with close ties to the U.S. but without hostile actions toward Iran—for example, South Korea and Japan—plus many countries in the European Union. At $1.2–$1.5 per barrel, Iran must monitor the entire process, and the approval queue will be relatively long.

The fifth tier is the U.S., Israel, and allies—passage is prohibited.

Once ultra-large oil tankers have paid the toll, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran issues a license code and route instructions. The ships must fly the national flags of countries that have negotiated transit agreements; in some cases, they must also officially change the country where the vessel is registered. When the ships approach the Strait of Hormuz, they must broadcast their transit passwords via very high frequency (VHF) radio, after which a patrol craft will come to meet them and escort them through the strait, staying close to the coastline and between a group of islands that industry insiders have dubbed the “Iranian toll stations.”

This is the first time a sovereign state has incorporated stablecoins into strategy-level payment infrastructure.

Unlike earlier symbolic measures by El Salvador to legalize Bitcoin as legal tender, Iran’s choice is mandatory at a commercially scaled level. The strait carries 21% of global crude oil seaborne volume, with more than dozens of vessels transiting each day.

If the mechanism continues to operate, it is expected that more than $20 billion worth of stablecoins per year will flow through digital wallets controlled by Iran, forming a pool of gray liquidity protected by sovereign power.

A deeper shock lies in the knock-on effects for shipping insurance and trade finance. The International Group of P&I Clubs (IG) has issued an internal warning stating that paying fees to the IRGC may trigger sanctions compliance risks in the European Union and the United Kingdom, causing policies to become void. This forces shipowners into a painful trade-off between shipping economics and legal risk: rerouting via the Cape of Good Hope adds 15 days to the voyage and tens of thousands of dollars in fuel costs, while paying crypto tolls carries the risk of account freezes. Some large commodity traders have begun trying to reconstruct routes through intermediaries in Pakistan. Islamabad recently announced it will allow 20 international oil tankers to fly the flag of Pakistan for passage, effectively providing an offshore subcontracting channel for Iran’s system.

Iran is not the only country doing this. Russia previously announced similar charging policies for the Northern Sea Route and has publicly considered accepting cryptocurrency settlements. This digital-finance logic of “node-ifying” geographic hubs is reshaping the payment infrastructure for global energy trade.

When merchant ships complete USDT settlement on-chain through agreements in the Qeshm Island anchorage, what is completed is not only the payment of a one-off transit fee, but the systematic unloading of the remaining architecture of the Bretton Woods system.

The fragility of this experiment is also clear. Because USDT/USDC are, in essence, still pegged to the dollar and subject to OFAC tracking, the risk point is how the shadow “how” created by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps can be scaled to “decentralize” into tangible assets or fiat currency (rial). However, as long as Iran maintains its geographic monopoly over the Strait of Hormuz, this financial war using cryptocurrency as a medium will continue rewriting the rulebook for global trade.