https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/technology/binance-employ...

> People in Iran had gained access to more than 1,500 accounts on the Binance platform over the previous year. About $1.7 billion had flowed from two Binance accounts to Iranian entities with links to terrorist groups, a possible violation of global sanctions. And one of those accounts belonged to a Binance vendor.

> After uncovering the transactions, the investigators reported them to top executives, according to company records and other documents reviewed by The New York Times.

> Within weeks, Binance fired or suspended at least four employees involved in the investigation, according to the documents and three people with knowledge of the situation. The company cited issues such as “violations of company protocol” related to the handling of client data.

[..]

> But internal warnings about the Iranian transactions surfaced last year, in the months before President Trump granted a pardon to Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, who had spent four months in federal prison in 2024 for his role in the firm’s crimes. The Trump family’s crypto start-up, World Liberty Financial, has forged close business ties with Binance, and Mr. Zhao was a guest this month at a conference at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla.

This all sounds more like a TV show script than an actual thought-out plan to me.

edit: And it seems I was wrong despite it being my initial thought in terms of used rail.

“He said that the tariff is $1 per barrel of oil, adding that empty tankers can pass freely.

“‘Once the email arrives and Iran completes its assessment, vessels are given a few seconds to pay in bitcoin, ensuring they can’t be traced or confiscated due to sanctions,’ Hosseini added.”

>“Once the email arrives and Iran completes its assessment, vessels are given a few seconds to pay in Bitcoin, ensuring they can’t be traced or confiscated due to sanctions,” FT reported, citing Hosseini.

https://beincrypto.com/iran-bitcoin-toll-hormuz-strait-tanke...

I wish it need not have happened in my time

Details on this deal are sketchy but it seems like Iran will continue charging a toll for the Strait of Hormuz (of approximately $1/barrel). You hear figures like $2 million but bear in mind that VLCCs/ULCCs can carry 2M+ barrels of oil. Also, it seems like there will be significant sanctions relief.

Here's the problem: how does Iran get paid? Normally that would be through international payments systems but the US exerts a lot of control over those and can freeze assets as they've done in the past. Part of the payments under the previous JCPOA [3] were to return money paid to Iran for oil where those payments had been frozen. Russia got locked out of SWIFT after the Ukraine invasion [4] as another example.

So I see this as a defensive and potentially temporary move to avoid the risk of asset seizure and freezing should hostilities resume. Iran may well end up with access to international payments systems again in the coming weeks, at which point this could all change.

It is interesting that crypto is being used for this but that just goes to the point that the use case for crypto is to bypass laws. That's no different here.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWIFT_ban_against_Russian_bank...

https://beincrypto.com/iran-bitcoin-toll-hormuz-strait-tanke...

https://news.bitcoin.com/report-iran-charges-crypto-and-yuan...

https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/first-two-ships-pass-throug...