MW 'They essentially have a blackmail card up their sleeve': A look at Iran's plan to charge tankers to use the Strait of Hormuz
By Isabel Wang and Joy Wiltermuth
Iran plans to impose transit tolls - reportedly in crypto payments - on all tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz
Iran plans to impose tolls on all tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
With a temporary two-week cease-fire between the U.S. and Iran easing immediate tensions in the Middle East, a new focal point is emerging around future control of the Strait of Hormuz: Iran wants to turn the passage into a tolled waterway.
Iran on Wednesday reportedly was requiring vessels to pay transit fees in cryptocurrency, rather than traditional currencies like the dollar, to get their fleets moving through the strait. Meanwhile, U.S. President Trump said he's considering the formation of a "joint venture" with Iran to set up tolls on the Strait of Hormuz.
"It's a small toll relative to the actual underlying cargo value, but it was the first time ever seeing a major country tied to the asset [oil] basically say we are going to take the equivalent of the dollar in bitcoin (BTCUSD) or crypto in order to transit through the strait," Louis LaValle, co-founder and CEO at Frontier Investments, told MarketWatch.
To be sure, the Iranian proposal wouldn't immediately change how oil (CL00) (BRN00) is priced and traded globally. The greenback DXY would still dominate crude transactions, but it's shipping tolls through the strait - paid by cargo tankers - that could potentially settle in alternative currencies.
"This is more than just a toll. It is a direct challenge, at least symbolically and potentially structurally, to the petrodollar system that has underpinned U.S. financial dominance for decades," LaValle said.
See: How the Iranian war may lead to the last days of the petrodollar
From a political perspective, it also means that Iran "gets a piece of the action" in the Strait of Hormuz, said David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
"That's an extraordinary source of revenue - also a reminder that they essentially have a blackmail card up their sleeve," he added.
The two-week cease-fire remains fragile. The temporary deal was reached less than two hours before Trump's Tuesday evening deadline, prior to which he warned that Iran's "whole civilization will die tonight." The White House on Wednesday said Iran had given assurances that it is allowing ships to pass through the crucial waterway, but Tehran reportedly limited traffic once again on the strait because of Israel's attacks on Lebanon.
Vice President J.D. Vance will lead the U.S. delegation in talks with Iran on Saturday in Islamabad, Pakistan, the White House said Wednesday. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters it's not a "definitively accepted" policy that Iran would be allowed to charge tolls on the strait.
Iran was already chipping away at dollar-based oil trade
Even before the start of the Iran conflict in late February, a lot of Iranian and U.S.-sanctioned crude-oil flows - especially those into China - were already settled in Chinese yuan (USDCNY) without touching the U.S. financial system. Venezuela, Russia and Iran have also been using the yuan for oil trading since 2018, after the U.S. imposed sanctions on their oil sectors, according to energy traders and consultants.
"During the Hormuz disruptions, that didn't really change. People just leaned more on those existing nondollar channels," said Baron Lamarre, co-founder of the International Digital Exchange and former head of trading at Petronas.
Lamarre told MarketWatch that there are indications that Japan - given how dependent it is on Middle Eastern crude - may be purchasing some Iranian oil and settling in yen (USDJPY). "But that's the kind of activity where, officially, parties will neither confirm nor deny," he noted.
Lamarre said he hasn't really seen crypto being used at scale in oil trades. "The ticket sizes are just too big. If you're moving that kind of volume, getting in and out of crypto without running into liquidity issues or moving the market is pretty difficult for producers," he added.
Although it's not unprecedented for oil trading to be conducted in currencies other than the dollar, the Middle East conflict has accelerated efforts by Iran to trade oil outside the traditional dollar framework.
That's why Iran's planned transit fees would "represent an attempt, however early, to build a parallel settlement mechanism" around crude oil outside the traditional dollar system, LaValle said.
It would also come as Iran and China have been using the war to further chip away at the global financial system's dependence on the dollar.
Robert Schroeder contributed.
-Isabel Wang -Joy Wiltermuth
This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 08, 2026 17:26 ET (21:26 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments