Iran has proposed reopening the Strait of Hormuz with a toll of up to USD 2 million per ship. The payment would be in Chinese Renminbi, with cryptocurrency also mentioned.
Around one-fifth of the world’s oil and LNG supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Much of these energy flows go to Asia, which could raise the use of CNY for settlement.
Legal questions around enforcing such tolls create uncertainty. The scope of any currency change is limited by the share of trade that would be affected.
By 2024, oil, oil products, and natural gas made up around 10% of global goods trade, based on Comtrade data. Less than a fifth of this trade would be directly affected by the proposed toll plan.
Central bank reserves have been shifting away from the US dollar towards “non-traditional” currencies. Gopinath et al., 2022 links this move mainly to geopolitical developments.
Since the start of the Ukraine war, some countries with weaker ties to the West have reduced trade settled in USD and EUR. More payments have been made in Renminbi, domestic currencies, or other options.
The article notes it was produced with an AI tool and checked by an editor.
Iran’s proposal to charge Strait of Hormuz tolls in Renminbi is creating headlines, but we see this as more of a political signal than a major economic shift. While it fuels the “petroyuan” narrative, the direct impact on global currency flows is likely to be minimal. Traders should therefore focus on the second-order effects, such as increased geopolitical risk and sentiment-driven volatility.
The broader de-dollarization trend we’ve been watching is a slow, multi-year process, not an overnight event. Looking back, SWIFT data through late 2025 showed the Renminbi’s share of global payments had grown to just over 5%, a significant increase but still dwarfed by the dollar. Similarly, the latest IMF COFER data from that period confirmed the dollar’s share of central bank reserves had only dipped slightly to around 57%, showing its entrenched position.
The argument that oil’s role in global trade is shrinking holds true, a trend we saw continue through 2025. With oil and related products making up a smaller slice of the global trade pie, a new toll on the roughly 21 million barrels per day passing through Hormuz is a new friction point, not a systemic threat to dollar dominance. This reinforces our view that the move is more about political posturing and diversifying away from Western financial systems.
For derivative traders, the primary takeaway is not to make large, directional bets on a USD collapse or a CNY surge based on this news alone. Instead, the strategy in the coming weeks should be to trade the increased uncertainty. We believe buying near-term volatility on currency pairs like USD/CNH using options, such as a straddle, is a prudent way to position for a potential spike in either direction.
This development also adds a new layer of risk directly to energy prices, which have been sensitive to Mideast tensions. The toll acts as a new tax on a critical chokepoint, raising the cost and risk of transport. A tactical approach would be to buy front-month call options on Brent or WTI futures to hedge against, or profit from, any sudden price flare-ups related to enforcement or shipping disruptions in the strait.
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