This marks the first time a sovereign nation has incorporated stablecoins into its strategic-level payment infrastructure.
Written by: Mahe, Foresight News
On April 2, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Haider al-Gharibabadi publicly confirmed at a regular press conference in Tehran that all very large crude carriers (VLCCs) passing through the Strait of Hormuz must pay a passage fee to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and explicitly exclude the use of the US dollar for settlement. This statement formalized rumors circulating in the shipping industry—that Iran is no longer content with using the Strait as a traditional tool in geopolitical games, but is instead transforming control of the Strait into a financial experiment against the dollar's hegemony.
The implementation of the fee mechanism has been faster than the market expected.
Bloomberg, citing internal documents from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, reported that the system was technically deployed by the end of March. Iran has only two options for receiving the toll: wire transfer in RMB or settlement in a USD stablecoin via a decentralized network.
Iranian customs authorities have set up a dedicated cryptocurrency exchange window on Qeshm Island to ensure that funds are quickly converted into rials or transferred to overseas accounts after being credited to their accounts.
This arrangement was meticulously designed.
Traditional international shipping settlements rely on the SWIFT network and correspondent banking system, and any transaction involving Iran would trigger secondary sanctions from the US Treasury Department. The combination of the RMB cross-border payment system and public blockchain networks, however, creates a parallel channel that bypasses dollar monitoring.
According to statistics from London-based shipping brokerage Braemar, at least two oil tankers flying unidentified flags of convenience completed RMB payments and safely passed through the Strait of Hormuz by the end of March. The "Strait of Hormuz Passage Management Law," passed by the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee on March 30, further provides domestic legal support for this mechanism.
It is worth mentioning that Iran also differentiates the handling fees for vessels based on their geopolitical relevance.
Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported on the oil pricing standards in the Strait of Hormuz, starting at $0.50 per barrel and divided into five tiers based on different relationships with the countries involved.
- The first tier is the allied special price, for China and Russia, at $0.5-0.7 per barrel. There is a special green channel, and free passage is possible with regular reporting.
- The second tier consists of friendly partners, such as India and Pakistan, with prices ranging from $0.8 to $0.9 per barrel.
- The third tier includes neutral countries, African countries, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, with a price of $1 per barrel. These countries require declaration and are released after inspection to ensure they do not contain hostile assets.
- The fourth tier consists of high-risk countries that have close ties with the United States but do not engage in hostile acts against Iran, such as Japan, South Korea, and many EU countries. These countries are valued at $1.2-1.5 per barrel. Iran will monitor these countries throughout the process, and the review process will take a long time.
- The fifth category includes the United States, Israel, and their allies, who are prohibited from passing through.
Once a supertanker pays its toll, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issues a license code and route instructions. The ship only needs to fly the flag of the country with which the passage agreement was negotiated, and in some cases, its official registration must be changed to that country. When the ship approaches the Strait of Hormuz, it must broadcast its passage code via VHF radio, after which a patrol boat will meet it and escort it through the strait close to the coastline, between a group of islands that industry insiders have dubbed the "Iranian tollbooth."
This marks the first time a sovereign nation has incorporated stablecoins into its strategic-level payment infrastructure.
Unlike El Salvador's symbolic move to legalize Bitcoin, Iran's choice carries a mandatory commercial scale. The Strait of Hormuz handles 21% of global oil shipping, with dozens of ships passing through daily.
If the mechanism continues to operate, it is estimated that more than $20 billion in stablecoins will flow through Iranian-controlled digital wallets annually, forming a gray liquidity pool protected by sovereign power.
A deeper impact lies in the ripple effects on shipping insurance and trade finance. The International Group of P&I Clubs (IG) has issued an internal warning, pointing out that payments to the IRGC could trigger EU and UK sanctions compliance risks, leading to policy lapses. This forces shipowners to make a harsh trade-off between shipping economics and legal risks: rounding the Cape of Good Hope adds 15 days to the voyage and tens of thousands of dollars in fuel costs, while paying cryptocurrency tolls risks account freezes. Some commodity traders have begun to try to restructure shipping routes through Pakistani intermediaries, and Islamabad recently announced that it would allow 20 international oil tankers to fly the Pakistani flag, effectively providing an offshore outsourcing channel for the Iranian system.
Iran is not the only country doing this. Russia has previously announced a similar toll policy for the Northern Sea Route and has publicly considered accepting cryptocurrency payments. This digital financial logic, which 'nodes' geographical hubs, is reshaping the payment infrastructure for global energy trade.
When a merchant ship completes a USDT settlement via an on-chain protocol at the anchorage of Qeshm Island, it is not just a matter of paying a toll, but also a systematic unloading of the remaining architecture of the Bretton Woods system.
The vulnerabilities of this experiment are equally apparent. Since USDT/USDC is essentially still pegged to the US dollar and tracked by OFAC, the risk lies in how the shadow corporation established by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps can massively and "decentralizedly" exchange it for physical assets or fiat currency (rials). However, as long as Iran maintains its geographical monopoly over the Strait of Hormuz, this financial war mediated by cryptocurrency will continue to rewrite the rulebook of global trade.
