💸 Iran's Strait of Hormuz toll booth ran on bitcoin

Iran charged tankers $1–2 million per vessel for "safe passage" through the Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint for a fifth of the world's oil. Treasury just traced where that money landed.

OFAC sanctioned BitBank, a Tehran exchange founded in 2024, and its developer. The charge: hundreds of millions in bitcoin flowed through it to the Revolutionary Guards. Hormuz Safe Marine collected the fees; BitBank was the till.

Secondary sanctions put any foreign firm that touched its transactions at risk of losing dollar access. One gap, per Blockworks: OFAC named zero wallet addresses — without them, compliance screening runs blind.

A crypto toll booth on the world's busiest oil lane. Perfectly normal 2025.

CoinDesk