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Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

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Re: Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

#211

Post by gwern »

ux266478 wrote: post #76
pokstad wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBF, Iran is saying an exorbitant price right now, but in reality they will need to balance their price with demand to bring in the maximum possible revenue. The toll may work out in the long run.

Very Large Crude Carriers carry ~2 million barrels of oil. Ultra Large Crude Carriers double that. If oil went down to $50/Bbl, that $2 million fee amounts to a ~2% tax per ship, given their cargo capacity. It's not particularly exorbitant, especially given that the entire reason they proposed this toll was to fund their rebuilding efforts (Americans and Israelis did a lot of damage that's been under-reported and ign…

The 2% is the camel's nose. They are establishing that they tax the Strait traffic and there is no longer freedom of navigation. Once it is a done deal, the deal will be altered...

Re: Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

#212

Post by lancewiggs »

deweller wrote: post #120

A "few seconds" to pay in bitcoin? So the captain is supposed to be watching for a response via email with his finger hovering over the pay button? Is the recipient address static? Surely they would use unique payment addresses if they have any hope of obfuscating payments. This all sounds more like a TV show script than an actual thought-out plan to me.

WSJ reports they can pay in Chinese yuan instead of Bitcoin.

Re: Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

#213

Post by overfeed »

GeoPolAlt wrote: post #59
jMyles wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As best I can tell, the Iranian regime and Sharif both said that they ceasefire included a cease to strikes on Lebanon, Netanyahu explicitly said that it did not, and the Trump admin, Lebanon, and Hezbollah have not yet commented either way. Links to Pakistan and Israel statements here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/8/us-iran-ceasefire-de...

Trump and Leavitt have both said that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire

Iran gets a vote, and ceasefires need belligerents' unanimity, by definition.

Re: Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

#214

Post by surgical_fire »

ithkuil wrote: post #200
surgical_fire wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the UN convention says about killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure? I think any such pretenses were abandoned right off the start.

You make it sound that there are only two sides in this story. Spain, Argentina, Kenya, Indonesia, Kuwait and countless other countries haven't bombed any civilian infrastructure either and yet they will be affected by the aggressive posture around international maritime traffic. Are you expecting that Iran will not apply the fee to ships that sell oil Malesia or South Africa?

For the Iranian perspective it doesn't matter.

Their only defense against being bombed was using their geopolitical position to its advantage. Their own civilian infrastructure was bombed by the US-Israel axis, with the support of the Gulf states.

I fully expect Iran to apply fees on every ship going through, and they should.

Spain, Argentina, Kenya, Indonesia and countless other countries are paying for the aggressive and reckless actions of the US-Israel axis.

That's the situation of the country where I live btw. I don't blame Iran for using the weapons at their disposal for survival, I blame the rogue states that attacked Iran and forced their hand. Let's not forget that Iran could have done it at any time in the past decades, and showed restraint in doing so, even with all the sanctions and Israeli aggression.

Re: Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

#215

Post by TitaRusell »

vrganj wrote: post #144
belorn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitively if they agreed to it as part of the ceasefire. What did each part actually agree to when they agreed to a ceasefire? There doesn't seem to be much concrete information about that part.

I think Trump and the Iranians agreed to two different ceasefires and now both pretend they won.

You can watch Nixon's speeches on YouTube. He certainly tried to spin the Vietnam war...

But ultimately Nixon was right. America getting out of Vietnam was a good thing.

Re: Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

#216

Post by nemothekid »

lesuorac wrote: post #201
nemothekid wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The version of the ceasefire that you are got third hand from Twitter or American news outlets are not accurate. 2. Iranians can't read. Which do you think is more likely?

> 1. The version of the ceasefire that you are got third hand from Twitter or American news outlets are not accurate. Are they any more accurate than what Iran or America thinks? IIUC, this whole thing is phone tag.

Most likely not. I've seen Iranian sources claim that the 10 point plan is violated[1]. However I (1) do not know about Iran's government structure and (2) I can only trust other sources that I believe are trustworthy.

However I think assuming that Israel violating the ceasefire (as they have done multiple times in the past) is more reasonable than assuming a country with a ~400B GDP (similar to Hong Kong, Portugal) has leaders that "can't read".

[1] https://x.com/mb_ghalibaf/status/2041943537386958858

Re: Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

#217

Post by amavect »

wongarsu wrote: post #188
snickerbockers wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The democrats deserve a fair share of the blame for that just for their having created and maintained the two-party duopoly along with the Republicans. At the very least its not the voters fault if the only viable alternative to the Republicans is constantly rigging (or in this case straight-up bypassing ) their own primaries to put corrupt party insiders at the forefront.

The root cause is the first-past-the-post voting system that ensures a two-party system. But for the party with the most responsibility for blowing it all up I'd like to nominate Rupert Murdoch. Most visibly with Fox News, but really his entire media empire

Yet another reminder that we need approval voting, or even STAR voting, for single-winner elections. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jfHPFQU https://www.equal.vote/approval https://www.equal.vote/beyond_rcv_zine

Re: Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

#218

Post by fernandopj »

konschubert wrote: post #179
fernandopj wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow your logic, but one could argue this campaign with drones and cheaper missiles taught Iran it doesn't even need a nuclear deterrent anymore. Between this and Ukraine, the logic of a nuclear warhead deterrent might be considered a paradigm relic from 20th century.

This is false. If Trump had chosen to nuke Iranian cities, Iran would have had no recourse without a proper nuclear bomb.

I agree that you are correct in this statement, althought if USA or Israel decided to nuke a country without a MAD recourse, that would be another can of worms. There's multiple reasons no country did that after Hiroshima. Even Russia refrained themselves of doing that in Ukraine after all these years.

Allow me to do a slight modification on my assessment: Iran found out they won't need a nuclear deterrent to avoid ANY future aggression; modern, cheap drones and conventional missile loadouts will do just fine. Money they would continue spending on nuclear enrichment can be better spent elsewhere, military.

Re: Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

#219

Post by overfeed »

Pay08 wrote: post #175
M_bara wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it’s a good counter to get both sides of the coin. At the moment you’ll find BBC, CNN, NYT et al on one end and Al Jazeera on the other. I also look at DW for a more balanced approach. Don’t consume from one camp!

Fair call on CNN and DW, but the NYT has always been at least somewhat aligned with Al Jazeera, and the BBC switches around with whatever the current government is.

> NYT has always been at least somewhat aligned with Al Jazeera

Hard disagree: the NYT adopts a weird passive voice that goes against its house style, along with headlines with no subject when it comes to events in Gaza[1]. Al Jazeera consistently names the doers of the verbs.

1. Once you're aware of it, it becomes impossible not to notice. It is the Wilhelm scream of news coverage.

Re: Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

#220

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ReflectedImage wrote: post #207
xnyan wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large segment of the Iranian political class bet their reputations on the nuclear non-proliferation deal with the US in 2015. They've all now been utterly discredited and the hardliners proven correct in all of their predictions. They can look at Ukraine who bitterly regrets giving up their nuclear weapons, or North Korea, seemingly invulnerable despite being the most pariah of pariah states. From the perspective o…

"From the perspective of the Iranian state" Well you say that but they have got a non-nuclear nuke equivalent in the form of kamikaze drones.

That didn't keep them from getting bombed for a month, and their senior leadership all killed. It just let them punch back a little bit. Not an equal amount, just a little bit.

So, no, not a "nuke equivalent".

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