Iran Says Bitcoin, Chainalysis Says Tether: The Hormuz Tolls Are Staying Stable

Iran wants cryptocurrency payments from tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, with Hamid Hosseini, spokesperson for Iran's Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters' Union, explicitly naming Bitcoin. But Chainalysis thinks the regime will actually settle up in stablecoins—and honestly, they're probably right. Nothing says "trust us with your shipping fees" like a government that treats Bitcoin like a suggestion rather than a mandate.

The firm points to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) documented history of preferring dollar-pegged tokens for illicit trade. The logic is pretty simple: dollar-pegged stablecoins hold their value in ways Bitcoin can't. Iran's rial has cratered against the dollar, so price stability matters when you're collecting tolls on millions of barrels daily. Watching your toll revenue drop 15% because BTC had another Tuesday is not the vibes Tehran is going for.

"The regime has leveraged stablecoins because their backing by the US dollar guarantees preservation of value and provides the liquidity necessary for use at scale," Chainalysis noted. Meanwhile, Bitcoin's regular price swings would make toll revenue unpredictable between collection and conversion. Imagine invoicing in something that could be worth $67,000 or $52,000 depending on which influencer tweeted that day—accounting departments would simply riot.

The IRGC has historically leaned on stablecoins for oil sales, weapons procurement, and proxy financing. Bitcoin, for its part, has mainly shown up in Iranian cyber operations like ransomware campaigns—a different ballgame entirely from high-volume commercial toll collection. Turns out ransomware demands and shipping lane tolls have slightly different UX requirements. Who knew?

The numbers behind the IRGC's existing crypto operations are nothing to sneeze at. Chainalysis estimated that IRGC-linked wallet addresses received over $2 billion in 2024, climbing above $3 billion in 2025—roughly half of Iran's total crypto ecosystem by Q4. Those figures are conservative, covering only addresses tied to OFAC designations and Israel's seizure lists. The full network of shell companies and intermediary wallets is considerably larger. So when someone says "crypto adoption," Iran is genuinely out here putting up staggering numbers.

Before the Strait's partial closure, it handled around 20 million barrels of oil per day—