Iran’s Sanctions-Busting Crypto Ambitions Grow on Toll Payments

As a fragile US-Iran ceasefire takes shape, Tehran has signaled that payments in digital currency should form part of any toll system for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which around a fifth of the world’s oil normally flows. The logic is clear: tokens cannot be easily confiscated under sanctions.

Crypto market participants say the plan appears all but unworkable through legitimate channels. Yet the demand has laid bare a sanctions-evasion infrastructure that is larger, and harder for Western enforcers to contain, than any single toll system.

The Financial Times reported this week that Iran would ...