Original article by Odaily Odaily( @OdailyChina )
Author｜Golem ( @web3_golem )
Some news stories immediately spark speculation, such as the one from April 8th— Iran plans to impose a passage fee of $1 per barrel on oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz during a two-week ceasefire, payable in Bitcoin .
The crypto market reacted swiftly. When Iran announced its intention to collect tolls from oil tankers in Bitcoin, the price of BTC briefly surged to $73,000. Although the price of Bitcoin has since fallen back to around $70,000, for Bitcoin believers, the symbolic significance far outweighs the mere "a few points" of profit— Satoshi Nakamoto's vision of "electronic cash" for Bitcoin has been triggered in an extreme scenario.
Extreme tools have finally encountered extreme scenarios.
After Iran announced this news to the world, I imagined an extremely absurd yet incredibly real moment.
On the narrow, blue throat of the Persian Gulf, which controls over 20% of the world's crude oil supply, oil tankers lined up, waiting to pass. Helicopters with machine guns hovered overhead, and Iranian warships stood ready to bomb any vessels that disobeyed regulations. At that moment, the captain of a supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of crude oil stood on the deck, staring intently at his screen in the salty sea breeze. He couldn't hear the sound of the Persian Gulf's waves; instead, he anxiously awaited the processing of a massive Bitcoin transaction, a process that would take about 10 minutes. Only after the Bitcoins successfully reached the address of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could his ship pass safely.
When oil, the most vital industrial lifeblood of human civilization, needs to be "released" by both the offline strait and the online Bitcoin network, a sense of epic dislocation arises that sends shivers down one's spine.
One of the most debated topics in recent years has been the actual use of Bitcoin. Regardless of the final outcome, the oldest narrative—the "peer-to-peer electronic cash" first appearing in the Bitcoin white paper—has been refuted. This is because Bitcoin not only experiences significant price volatility but also suffers from exceptionally low settlement efficiency. Not only is it vastly different from traditional banking settlement systems, but even considering the cost and efficiency of cross-border payments, the market prioritizes stablecoins. Bitcoin appears to have been completely excluded from the list of payment use cases.
However, in extreme scenarios, traditional banking settlement systems and stablecoins become useless. What is an extreme scenario? It's when a country is kicked out of SWIFT, its foreign exchange reserves become nothing more than a string of numbers in overseas banks that can only be viewed but not moved, and even the use of stablecoins will be frozen by the issuer. Iran is currently facing such an extreme scenario; even if bank and stablecoin settlements are fast, they ultimately won't reach Iran's pockets. (Odaily note: Tether froze 42 Iranian addresses in 2025, and in March 2026, Circle and Tether jointly froze approximately $2.49 million in stablecoin assets related to the Iranian exchange Wallex.)
If you were Iran, facing a "global policeman" who could freeze all your foreign exchange assets and cut off all your banking connections at any time, efficiency and volatility would no longer matter; the right to self-determination in settlement would be everything . Hamid Hosseini, a spokesman for the Iranian Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Exporters Union, explained his choice of Bitcoin as a settlement tool to a Financial Times reporter quite frankly: Bitcoin is used to ensure it cannot be traced or confiscated due to sanctions .
Hosseini's statement is only half true. Bitcoin flows can indeed be tracked on the blockchain, and the US has indeed tracked and seized Bitcoin in several international cases in the past. However, these actions are all retrospective and take time. Furthermore, due to the decentralized nature of Bitcoin's network, the US government cannot track and stop Iran's transactions with oil tankers at the very moment they occur. Achieving this much would be sufficient for Iran.
This also proves that perhaps Bitcoin was never intended for a peaceful and prosperous future . When the world begins to fragment and trust collapses, this consensus based on mathematics and code becomes the last "financial haven" for marginalized groups. Satoshi Nakamoto's "dragon-slaying technique," written over more than a decade, has come in handy amidst the smoke and fire of the Persian Gulf.
Is the talk of buying Bitcoin across the Gulf just empty rhetoric?
However, let's not rush to celebrate Bitcoin. Let's return to reality; the "option" of collecting Bitcoin from oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz may not actually happen. On the morning of April 9th, just one day after Hussein announced the collection of Bitcoin from transiting oil tankers, the Strait of Hormuz was closed again. This inevitably raises questions: Was Hussein just making empty threats from the beginning?
Arthur Hayes expressed similar doubts, stating in an article on the X platform that he would only believe the claim that Iran was charging transit fees in Bitcoin if he saw actual Bitcoin transaction records on the blockchain; otherwise, it was more likely a prank on the Western financial system.
Even assuming the Strait of Hormuz hadn't been closed today, and the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had amassed a huge amount of Bitcoin, it wouldn't simply sit there. To purchase food, medicine, and weapons, Iran would ultimately need to sell these Bitcoins for fiat currency. However, under the current OFAC sanctions against Iran, which global exchange or institution would dare to help Iran sell these Bitcoins? The US might not be able to apprehend them for now, but they will inevitably face repercussions later.
Therefore, considering the reality, Hosseini's statement is most likely a psychological tactic; he may not actually want to accept Bitcoin, but rather it's a strong statement to the US . The signal Iran wants to convey is that US sanctions are ineffective, and that in extreme scenarios, it can still operate freely in the international financial system without relying on the US dollar, SWIFT, or stablecoins.
Ultimately, in geopolitical discourse, the important thing isn't whether a statement can be implemented, but rather what signal it sends, what psychological pressure it creates, and what shifts in the game's expectations . Even if it doesn't ultimately materialize, it has already fulfilled its communicative purpose. For example, on the eve of the two-week ceasefire announcement between the US and Iran, Trump made a rhetoric about wiping out the entire Iranian civilization overnight. Without such a strong threat from Trump, it's hard to say whether the US and Iran would have reached a ceasefire.
Therefore, in this game, Bitcoin can play the role of an assassin, or it can simply be a smokescreen. As crypto advocates, we shouldn't be too disappointed; the right attitude is neither to over-hype nor to underestimate it.
Because one thing is certain: Bitcoin has been dragged into the "geopolitical sphere." When sovereign states use Bitcoin as a weapon and a threat, it proves that it has not been forgotten.
This is enough to comfort people: the world is getting colder, but Bitcoin mining machines are getting hotter.
