Bitcoin Meets Geopolitics as Hormuz Experiments With Crypto Tollbooth

There are few economic bottlenecks more consequential than the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly a fifth of global oil consumption passes through the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea, making it less a regional shipping lane than a structural pillar of the global economy. When traffic through Hormuz is disrupted, as it is now, energy prices spike, insurance markets convulse, and supply chains from Rotterdam to Shanghai feel the aftershocks.