How much money does Iran make when Holmuz collects tolls in bitcoin

According to the Financial Times, on 8 April, the Government of Iran issued a circular to Global Shipping Lines requesting that all tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz pay tolls in bitcoin at barrel level during the two-week period of the ceasefire in the United States and Iraq as a condition for release. The circular did not contain an implementing agency, but only a bitcoin address and a sentence stating that “a non-paying vessel does not guarantee safe passage”。

This is the first non-sovereign State form of transit charges in the Strait of Hormuz since 1979. The first reaction of public opinion is "How much money can Iran recover from this toll?" But by pulling the numbers together, the answer is unexpectedly small。

Twenty-one million dollars a day. Pass

FIRST, THE CEILING ON TOLLS SHOULD BE CALCULATED. ACCORDING TO THE LATEST CALIBER RELEASED BY THE UNITED STATES ENERGY INFORMATION AGENCY EIA IN JUNE THIS YEAR, THE AVERAGE DAILY FLOW OF OIL IN THE STRAITS OF HORMUZ IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2025 WAS 20.9 MILLION BARRELS, OF WHICH CRUDE OIL ADDED CONDENSATE APPROXIMATELY 14.2 MILLION BARRELS, THE REST BEING FINISHED OIL AND OTHER PETROLEUM LIQUIDS. BASED ON A TOLL OF US$ 1 PER BARREL AND THE FULL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 14-DAY CEASEFIRE PERIOD, THE THEORETICAL TOTAL WAS $292.6 MILLION, AN AVERAGE OF $21 MILLION PER DAY. BASED ON A COLLECTION PRICE OF US$ 71,906 IN BITCOIN FOLLOWING THE 8 APRIL CEASEFIRE, APPROXIMATELY 4,069 BITCOINS WERE CONVERTED。

THE MONEY WAS RECEIVED BY IRAN IN THE NAME OF THE "SHIP CROSSING" AND ACTUALLY BY THE BUYER BEHIND THE TANKER. ACCORDING TO THE SAME EIA REPORT, ASIA ACCOUNTED FOR 84 PER CENT OF CRUDE OIL AND CONDENSED OIL EXPORTED THROUGH HORMUZ IN 2024, OF WHICH CHINA, INDIA, JAPAN AND THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA TOGETHER ATE ABOUT 69 PER CENT AND 14.4 MILLION BARRELS A DAY. EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES COMBINED ACCOUNTED FOR LESS THAN 16 PER CENT, AND THE UNITED STATES ITSELF RECEIVED ONLY ABOUT HALF A MILLION BARRELS, 7 PER CENT OF UNITED STATES CRUDE OIL IMPORTS AND 2 PER CENT OF TOTAL CONSUMPTION. IN OTHER WORDS, IRAN ' S TOLL BILL REALLY FALLS ON PAPER AND IS ADDRESSED TO ASIAN REFINERIES AND NATIONAL OIL COMPANIES。

It is worth noting that the real exporting power of Hormuz is not Iran, but Saudi Arabia, with an average of about 5.5 million barrels per day, or 38 per cent of crude oil exports in the Strait. Iran's own exports are subject to the same waterway and are charged for crossing by its neighbours。

It's a matter of days on Iran's books

Turning from the oil tanker to the books, $293 million immediately showed its size。

ACCORDING TO TWO ANALYSES ISSUED BY THE UNITED STATES SANCTIONS MONITORING BODY FDD IN OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER THIS YEAR, IRAN ' S CRUDE OIL EXPORTS PEAKED AT 2.15 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY IN OCTOBER 2025, WITH MONTHLY REVENUES ESTIMATED AT $3.9 TO $4.2 BILLION (AT A DISCOUNT OF 5 TO 10 PER CENT BASED ON THE BRENT BENCHMARK), WITH A DAILY AVERAGE OF ABOUT $130 MILLION. ACCORDING TO THIS CALIBER, THE FULL TOLL THEORY IS $293 MILLION, EQUAL TO 2.3 DAYS OF CRUDE OIL EXPORT EARNINGS FOR IRAN。

Military expenditures are more brutal. According to the Iranian think tank Iran Open Data Center, Iran ' s combined military spending in 2025, with an official budget of $12.36 billion plus an oil- and gas-specific sum of approximately Euro11 billion (converted at US$ 107.40 billion), is close to $23 billion. This toll only supports the Iranian army's 4.6-day expenditure. Even with a more conservative caliber, the SIPRI of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) gave Iran $7.9 billion in military spending in 2024, the toll cap would be no more than 13.6 days。

CHECK THE TREASURY. ACCORDING TO THE CENTRAL BANK OF IRAN CALIBER RECORDED IN THE FEDERAL RESERVE ' S FRED DATABASE, IRAN ' S FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES IN JANUARY 2025 WERE APPROXIMATELY $33.8 BILLION, AND THE TOLL WAS ONLY 0.87 PER CENT. THE IMF’S 2025 ECONOMIC OUTLOOK FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, PUBLISHED IN MAY THIS YEAR, CONTAINS A MORE STRAIGHTFORWARD SENTENCE: IRAN NEEDS AN OIL PRICE OF $163 PER BARREL IF IT WANTS TO BALANCE ITS 2025 BUDGET, WHEREAS REAL OIL PRICES ARE ONLY HALF THAT AMOUNT. IN THE SAME REPORT, IRAN ' S GDP GROWTH RATE IN 2025 WAS ESTIMATED AT 0.3 PER CENT, WITH INFLATION RISING FROM 37 PER CENT FORECAST AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR TO 43 PER CENT. THE TOLL IS JUST A SCRAP OF BOOKS THAT ARE "WEAKLY FED FOR HALF A MONTH"。

This is why this toll should not be interpreted as "war money". It was a fee-paying experiment in Iran under financial suffocation, small enough to solve any problems and symbolic enough to strain the global market。

In seven years, they couldn't sell the oil, and the neighbors kept doing business

Why does Iran choose this point of time and use it to open its mouth to pay for its journey。

THE LEFT AXIS OF THIS FIGURE IS IRAN ' S OWN CRUDE OIL EXPORTS, WITH AN AVERAGE OF 2.07 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY BEFORE THE UNITED STATES RESUMED SANCTIONS IN 2018, 0.77 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY IN 2019 AND 0.44 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY IN 2020. ACCORDING TO USIP’S IRAN WATCH COLUMN, IRAN LOST $41.3 BILLION IN EXPORT EARNINGS IN 2020 ALONE. AND THEN THEY CRAWLED BACK ON THE GREY FLOTILLA AND THE VALOR-DISCOUNT OIL UNTIL OCTOBER 2025, WHEN THEY GOT BACK TO THE LEVEL OF 2.15 MILLION BARRELS。

THE RIGHT AXIS IS THE TOTAL TRANSIT VOLUME OF THE SAME WATERWAY. EIA REPORTED 20.5 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY IN 2018, 21 MILLION BARRELS IN 2022, 20 MILLION BARRELS IN 2024 AND 20.9 MILLION BARRELS IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2025. OVER THE PAST SEVEN YEARS, IRAN ' S OWN OIL HAS COME DOWN FROM THE FRONT DOOR LESS AND LESS THAN A BARREL FROM THE NEIGHBOR ' S HOUSE. IN IRAN'S VIEW, THIS WATERWAY HAS BEEN "OTHERS' BUSINESS, MY DOOR"。

This is the historical background of the toll programme. For the first time, after three attempts to save itself from oil revenues and three sanctions to return to its original form, Iran shifted the target from "my oil" to "your oil". The US-Iraq ceasefire gave it a two-week policy window, and it is one thing to receive that the "priced" right of passage of this waterway is itself a release of a signal to itself and to its neighbours。

From the books, it's more like a seven-year late bill。

Encryption money is the only conduit that can actually get this money down

Last question, why bitcoin, not the United States dollar, the renminbi or the euro

According to the industry analysis platform Brava New Coin, based on the compilation of data from the Cambridge Encrypted Assets Centre CCAF 2025, the global calculation of mining in bitcoin in Iran is about 4.2 per cent, ranked fifth globally, after the United States, Kazakhstan, Russia and Canada. This means that self-accounting in Iran is itself a clearing line that does not depend on SWIFT and that miners directly produce freely transferable assets。

Asia Times published a long survey in March this year, IRGC processed over $3 billion in encrypted money flows in 2025 for the purpose of paying agents, transferring sanctioned oil, and acquiring weapons. According to the Chainalysis 2025 Encrypted Crime Report, the total volume of encrypted funds received by sanctioned entities worldwide in 2025 was about $104 billion, an increase of 694 per cent over the same period, with Iran as the main driver. These figures refer to the same thing: Iran has long considered the encrypted currency as its second financial source, a pipeline that has been running for three to four years, with infrastructure, access and clearing points available。

AND WHY NOT BE THE STABLE CURRENCY OF THE FIRE? BECAUSE THE ANCHORING OF THE UNITED STATES DOLLAR'S STABLE CURRENCY, USDT AND USDC, ARE REGULATED, LIKE THE DOLLAR, CAN BE SEIZED. AS LONG AS THE LOCATION OF IRAN ' S WALLET IS KNOWN, THE STABLE CURRENCY IN THE ADDRESS CAN BE FROZEN DIRECTLY, WHICH HAS HAPPENED MANY TIMES IN HISTORY。

SO THE "BITCOIN TOLL COLLECTION" IS NOT A GESTURE, IT IS THE ONLY CHANNEL IN IRAN THAT WILL ALLOW THIS MONEY TO BE ACTUALLY PUT IN THE BAG WITHOUT SWIFT, WITHOUT EURO-AMERICAN BANKS AND WITHOUT INTERMEDIARY BANKS. IRAN'S TWO-WEEK TOLL, IF PAID IN FULL, WOULD BE EQUIVALENT TO MORE THAN TWO DAYS OF CRUDE OIL EXPORT EARNINGS, BUT IT CHOSE BITCOIN BECAUSE OTHER MONEY WOULD NEVER REACH THE ACCOUNT。