On May 18, 2026, the Fars News Agency — affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — published the capture of the official website. Public URL, product branding, sales page. The product name: Hormuz Safe. The description: "secure digital marine insurance for cargo, paid in Bitcoin, with cryptographic verification and immediate activation after payment confirmation".
On April 2, when ON3X covered the first threat, it was a verbal communication from the IRGC: toll in yuan or crypto for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, with no formal infrastructure, no product, no website. Forty-eight days later, the toll has a tax ID. It's no longer a threat — it's a state platform.
The stated revenue target: $10 billion per year. The issuing body: Ministry of Economy and Financial Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The public promoter: Babak Zanjani, an Iranian businessman who became notorious in the 2010s for helping the regime evade sanctions and was sentenced to death in 2016 before having his sentence commuted.
The product name is the headline. But the real news is something else: the institutionalization of the toll operationally confirms the strategic error that Chainalysis pointed out in April — and the U.S. Treasury Department is already prepared to receive it.
48 days: from verbal to public website
Compact timeline of the arc that ON3X has covered since the beginning:
- April 2 — IRGC begins accepting payments in yuan or crypto (BTC, possibly USDT) for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, charging up to $2 million per vessel (ON3X post).
- April 13 — Chainalysis publishes technical analysis arguing that crypto toll is "strategic error": each payment leaves an immutable on-chain trail, and Chainalysis has tools to map Iranian addresses from Hormuz data itself (ON3X post).
- April 23 — Tether freezes $344 million in USDT at OFAC's request, linked to Iranian financial networks. Two specific addresses frozen after OFAC adds Iran's Central Bank to the SDN list. It was the largest USDT freeze of the year (ON3X post).
- May 1 — OFAC publishes official alert: digital asset payments related to passage through the Strait of Hormuz may trigger U.S. secondary sanctions exposure. Foreign companies paying to the regime face direct risk.
- May 8 — Babak Zanjani begins publicly promoting the idea of a "digital marine insurance" platform as a cover for the toll.
- May 16 — Iran's Ministry of Economy and Finance launches the Hormuz Safe platform internally.
- May 18 — Fars News Agency publicly releases the website, with capture, description, and $10 billion annual target.
The window between the first verbal threat and the public website was exactly seven weeks. In that interval, the regime tested reception (zero adoption outside IRGC-flagged vessels), measured U.S. reaction (sanctions targeting the Central Bank + $344M freeze), approved in Parliament the Strait of Hormuz Management Plan that codified the toll as domestic law, and refined the product branding. It was not improvisation. It was planning.
The "insurance" cover — extortion renamed as a product
The most revealing detail of Hormuz Safe is the policy coverage structure. The official website details exactly which risks are covered by the Bitcoin policy:
- Vessel inspection by the IRGC;
- Detention of the ship in Iranian waters;
- Confiscation of cargo or vessel by Iranian authorities.
And what is explicitly excluded: war-damage claims — damage from military attack.
Read in any international insurance commercial language, this is a proposition with no possible analogy. The insurer is the agent of the risk against which it offers protection. Inspection, detention, and confiscation are actions the IRGC executes unilaterally. Paying the Iranian Ministry platform to "protect" against these risks is not insurance purchase. It is toll payment to avoid hostile act from the same regime selling the policy.
The legal design of the product also reveals the calculation. By excluding war-damage, the regime protects itself legally: if the product is challenged in foreign court, the formal defense will be "it's insurance against administrative actions, not military ones". But the substance is the same — paying to avoid harm from whoever charges.
Babak Zanjani: the name that chooses its enemies
The figure chosen by the regime to publicly promote the product carries meaning of its own. Babak Zanjani became known in the early 2010s as the regime's "sanctions evader" — he operated oil and currency networks to circumvent American and European restrictions on Iran. He accumulated a fortune in the billions of dollars in the process. In 2016, he was sentenced to death for fasād-fil-arz (corruption on earth) after internal dispute with government factions. The sentence was commuted, and Zanjani remains imprisoned, but with public communication channels.
The fact that the regime mobilizes Zanjani to promote Hormuz Safe signals two things:
- Those who must use it understand the message. Zanjani is the face that communicates clearly, without ambiguity, that the product is sanctions evasion operation dressed as financial product. Those who need to pay understand. Those who oppose understand. Those who are neutral also understand.
- The regime accepts the reputational cost. Promoting via a figure sentenced for corruption signals that the product is not intended to gain Western legitimacy — it is intended for Chinese, Russian, Venezuelan, and Iranian operators who already operate outside Western legitimacy. Hormuz Safe is not courting the Lloyd's market. It is courting the parallel market.
The operational contradiction: BTC for "freeze resistance"
Iran's official technical justification for choosing Bitcoin over other instruments is, according to the website itself, "resistance to seizure and freezing". In a regime that suffered over $6 billion in frozen assets since the Obama era, the logic seems intuitive. But it is precisely where the strategic error materializes.
Tether already proved that it freezes. The freeze of $344 million in USDT linked to Iranian financial networks, executed on April 23 at OFAC's request, was the clearest demonstration that centralized stablecoin is not freeze-resistant. Bitcoin is different — it has no centralized issuer capable of freezing balances. But it has another characteristic that neutralizes the advantage: all addresses are public, and every transaction is recorded forever.
Chainalysis explained in April exactly the paradox: BTC may not be freezable, but it is the most traceable financial asset ever created. Each payment to Hormuz Safe will publicly record:
- The payer's address (likely linkable to the vessel operator through flow analysis);
- The recipient address (operated by the Iranian Ministry through known custody or hot wallet);
- The exact amount and exact moment of the transaction;
- The entire chain of subsequent BTC movement by the Iranian Treasury.
OFAC has in its hands, in real time, an updated map of every company that pays the Iranian regime. In secondary sanctions, this is sufficient evidence to add the paying company to the SDN. Bitcoin may not freeze — but it exposes.
TRM Labs published a recent paper confirming it already maps Iranian addresses linked to the toll with attribution rate over 90%. The practical effect: foreign shippers paying Hormuz Safe are paying to be identified.
The adoption that won't happen (and the political signal that will)
International analysts converge on the same prediction: Hormuz Safe adoption outside Iranian and IRGC-flagged vessels should remain close to zero. The reasons are the three combined pieces:
- OFAC already warned on May 1 that payment triggers secondary sanctions;
- Chainalysis and TRM Labs map all transactions in real time;
- The cost of paying ($2 million per crossing, plus reputational and legal exposure) is greater than the cost of accepting IRGC inspection or hiring U.S. Fifth Fleet escort in nearby corridors.
What then is Hormuz Safe, if the stated function (generating $10 billion) won't materialize?
It is political signal. It communicates:
- To the domestic base: the regime has capacity to monetize the geography it controls;
- To China and Russia: Iran is willing to accept BTC payments, creating parallel rail to SWIFT even under USDT freeze;
- To the West: the toll exists and is codified in domestic law — any company ignoring the "policy" assumes it can be inspected legally under Iranian law.
It is geopolitical leverage dressed as financial product. The real expected revenue is not in insurance premiums — it is in negotiating capacity in the next round of discussion about Iran's nuclear program.
The ON3X perspective
Three readings for what Hormuz Safe means from here on.
1. Act 5 of the arc confirms the editorial thesis of previous acts. ON3X covered the topic five times between March 31 and today. Each piece was a moment on the curve — initial geopolitical context, verbal threat of toll, Chainalysis technical analysis, OFAC freeze, now the website. The thesis remained: crypto as a state instrument for sanctions evasion is a poor tactical decision in the long run because the financial intelligence infrastructure is incomparably better today than it was in 2010. Hormuz Safe is operational confirmation, not refutation.
2. The difference between non-freezable Bitcoin and non-traceable Bitcoin is the difference that defines the regime's entire strategy — and OFAC's. Iran won a round in April, when Tether froze $344 million and showed that centralized stablecoins are a dubious tool for sanctions evasion. The response was to migrate to Bitcoin. But the victory is partial and temporary. Bitcoin is non-freezable and perfectly traceable. OFAC has already proved in previous cases (Bitfinex Hack, Garantex, Hydra) that traceability is more valuable than freezing for long-term investigation. The regime won a hammer. It forgot that the adversary won a microscope.
3. The institutionalization of the toll is the event, not the announcement. What matters is not that the website exists — it is that the Iranian Economy Ministry launched a formal product, with public URL, in just 48 days after the first verbal threat. This tested the regime's administrative capacity to implement a technical-financial product on a short timeline. The next round — probably involving expansion to other maritime corridors under Iranian influence (Bab-el-Mandeb via Houthis in Yemen) — could be even faster. Hormuz Safe is a pilot of institutional capacity, not just a toll maneuver. That is what deserves attention.
Forty-eight days separate the first verbal threat from the public website. The regime's next step — whether expansion to another corridor, integration with Chinese platforms, or response to a U.S. secondary sanction — will arrive faster. ON3X continues mapping.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Hormuz Safe?
Hormuz Safe is a "digital marine insurance" platform launched on May 18, 2026 by Iran's Ministry of Economy and Financial Affairs. It offers policies paid in Bitcoin that cover vessels in transit through the Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf, and adjacent waters against risks of inspection, detention, and confiscation — risks that are themselves executed by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The official revenue target is $10 billion annually.
Why did Iran choose Bitcoin and not other cryptocurrencies?
Stablecoins like USDT have already proven to be subject to freezing — Tether froze $344 million at OFAC's request on April 23, 2026. Bitcoin has no centralized issuer capable of freezing balances, making it freeze-resistant. But it is also the most traceable financial asset ever created — all addresses and transactions remain public and permanent on the blockchain, creating inverse exposure: the regime gains resistance to freezing and loses operational privacy.
Can foreign companies use Hormuz Safe without violating American sanctions?
No. OFAC published an official alert on May 1, 2026 warning that digital asset payments related to passage through the Strait of Hormuz may trigger U.S. secondary sanctions exposure. Paying companies may be added to the SDN List, lose access to the dollar financial system, and face fines. Transparent Bitcoin means every payment is traceable evidence of the transaction.
What is the relationship between Hormuz Safe and the IRGC?
The IRGC is simultaneously the agent of the risk covered by the policy (inspection, detention, and confiscation) and the operator of the platform that sells the protection. The Fars News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC, was the one who publicly released the website launch on May 18. Businessman Babak Zanjani — known for evading sanctions for the regime in the 2010s and sentenced in 2016 — acts as public promoter of the plan since May 8.
Will Hormuz Safe generate $10 billion per year?
Unlikely. International analysts converge on the prediction that adoption outside Iranian or IRGC-flagged vessels will be close to zero, due to three combined factors: OFAC alert on secondary sanctions, Chainalysis and TRM Labs' ability to map payments in real time, and availability of alternatives (administrative inspection by IRGC, U.S. Fifth Fleet escort in nearby corridors). The $10 billion target appears designed for political signaling rather than operational revenue.
How do Chainalysis and TRM Labs trace Hormuz Safe payments?
Both maintain proprietary databases that link blockchain addresses to real entities through flow analysis, exposure to known services (exchanges, mixers, custodians), clustering heuristics, and correlation with external data. TRM Labs published a paper confirming attribution rate over 90% for Iranian addresses linked to the toll. Each payment to Hormuz Safe publicly records the payer's address, recipient (operated by the Iranian Ministry), amount, and transaction moment.