Much of the post-WW2 American-led world order was founded partially on the United States using its military to keep international waters open. It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense. The military might is there, but this administration clearly had no idea what they were getting themselves into and did not plan accordingly. (and does not have the will or public support to do so)
The baffling part of this is that nearly everyone was aware that Iran could close the straight if pressed hard enough. The fact that this outcome is surprising represents a very loud and public failure on the administration's part.
Ironically the US has never ratified UNCLOS. The American professed interest in maintaining right of passage does not appear to require them to be held to the same standards.
Also the Strait of Hormuz is an international strait not international waters. The entire strait lies within Iranian and Omani waters. Frankly it's a bit absurd to complain that your ships can't transit a country's waters while you bomb them.
I don't know enough about the current state of naval warfare but I've assumed this is related to the asymmetry that's emerged around protecting capital warships, especially in the scenario of a very narrow strait and a long enemy-controlled coastline. They can shoot relatively low-cost, short-range guided missiles from anywhere along the coast. Even if a warship stops the vast majority of them, only one has to get through to sink a multi-billion dollar ship that takes a decade to replace.
There are now similar asymmetries emerging across war-fighting and even though warships can still be effective (and less vulnerable) in other scenarios, this specific one seems especially bad. The other factor is that most of what ships carry through the straight isn't going directly to the U.S. so the impact on the U.S. is mostly secondary, reducing the risk the U.S. is willing to take. Of course, all this was known beforehand by military strategists which makes this all look even worse for the U.S. administration.
Cheap drones taking out an AWACS is a great example of this. The US has only 16 of these and it will cost $700 million to replace, and was taken out by a drone that probably cost less than your car.
The administration knew this very well. They've been swinging the markets wildly and intentionally several times and they and their buddies have made billions from it.
> United States using its military to keep international waters open
Being a little pedantic, as per my knowledge, the Strait of Hormuz is not “international waters”. It’s territorial waters belonging to Iran and Oman. AFAIK, Iran hasn’t ratified UNCLOS either, and claims it is not subject to it.
Wikipedia says it's been Iranian/Omani territorial waters for quite a while:
> In 1959, Iran altered the legal status of the strait by expanding its territorial sea to 12 nmi (22 km) and declaring it would recognize only transit by innocent passage through the newly expanded area. In 1972, Oman also expanded its territorial sea to 12 nmi (22 km) by decree. Thus, by 1972, the Strait of Hormuz was completely "closed" by the combined territorial waters of Iran and Oman.
The Strait may well have some, but the traffic separation scheme for shipping is absolutely in Omani territorial waters, and another part of traversing the Strait includes passing through Iranian territorial waters.
All straits other than the Bosporus (which has some additional rights to Turkey given the proximity to a major city) are international waters for the purposes of free transit, under the Montreux Convention.
3 - Iran moderates are neutralized, so hardcore fanatics from IRGC take over. Loss for literally everybody.
Otherwise, 1) and 2) are true, Europe is bleeding through the nose with buying US oil and depending on its current antagonist, not smart long term situation that we need to move away asap.
Somebody in US government is making literal billions on shorts and various trade deals just before major announcements keep happening, those are not that hard to see in markets. Current top public bet on this is trumps family and his close coworkers, and their families. If you ever want a witch hunt on traitors and collaborators against US citizens and society, smart up, forget Wall street and just follow those money very directly to culprits.
Even if this analysis were accurate, I would feel much better if the administration had intentionally gone this route rather than accidentally blundering into it.
Seems like piracy is more about the land than the sea. I can't think of any major american military action against piracy aside from actions against somali terrorists. Seems piracy as it was known historically died out as the old historic pirate havens of say Tortuga or Outer Banks went from places of anarchy to places that were controlled by some government in some capacity. And that is exactly where we see the somali piracy today: here is a state that is unable to govern its land mass and thus there is piracy, even with the american navy directly taking action against this piracy. Seemingly this has nothing to do with the american navy at all, even though that is supposedly one of its mandates and it takes actions in the spirit of advancing these anti piracy goals. The fundamentals of why piracy does and doesn't occur don't really change. It seems it comes down to government capacity on land, not from projecting naval power.
American destroyers and aircraft carriers have been chased away from the Strait multiple times now.
Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.
In what way were they chased away? Iran tried to sink them and didn't hit any shots, and many on Iran's side died trying. Many IRGC soldiers dying and not even scratching the paint on US vessels doesn't show US to be weak.
> Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.
Valuing the lives of your crewmen and avoid terrorists is bad how? USA not wanting their soldiers to die is weak? Would you want more deaths on US side to show strength?
USA can win this war with barely any casualties, why would you not do that? And USA being able to do this with barely any losses shows tremendous strength to me, Iran was more powerful than Ukraine but USA could establish aerial superiority immediately with no losses, this is so much stronger than what Russia displayed.
But this stalemate benefits US corporations by raising the price for oil, so its not really hurting the attacker. In order to hurt a plutocracy like USA you need to hurt the American stock market but American stocks are doing great.
They are not, they updated their tactics to account for that so they destroyed a lot of Iranian small boats with bombs trying to attack the vessels. If they were incapable of countering that we would have seen American casualties in these skirmishes but only Iranians died.
You mean that these mafia style insurances are a joke, but free (as in safe and not taxed) access to the seas is something many wars have been fought over. "Insurance" selling by navies was the norm until WW1 at least.
The reason the US is blockading is because Iran is only partially blockading it. If Iran wasn't blockading at all then America wouldn't either. But it's pretty clear that "only shops whose countries pay a lot of money to Iran" would help Iran.
No they are not right now, otherwise we would have full news every day of it. Defense rockets for stuff like Patriot ran out, those systems are trivial to overwhelm and deplete in the age of cheap drones and become useless quickly.
Same for the major airports, they keep working, people keep flying to the asia, albeit in less numbers.
Exactly. The US just announces that they will take any vessel that pays for transit. So, what happens then? Any vessel that goes through and the IRGC doesn't shoot them, the US seizes. So, no one pays since they can't pay for successful transit. The fun game is that all the vessels just go at once. Any that the IRGC doesn't shoot the US takes. Any that it does shoot sink. So, no transit. Unless IRGC doesn't shoot at all, in which case everyone gets out of there with just one vessel paying the ransom. Ultimately this doesn't work for the IRGC as the US is far more capable of closing the strait than Iran is.
The US can also fuck with Iran by getting slight cooperation from ships in the Gulf of Oman by getting some small inflatable boats with remote control and AIS transmitters on them. Put the boat in the water next to a ship, turn of the ship's AIS, turn on the boats AIS, and send the boat through. Send hundreds of them. IRGC won't know what to shoot at or will expose their positions by firing at a rubber raft.
A combination of enough insurance to make it worth the time of the owner + offer the workers a generous amount to their next of kin could make it worth it. Being turned into minced meat might be worth it for some people if it means their families become rich.
Military history is full of quotes like "war is too important to be left to the generals". When you put people who focus on technical matters in charge, they often make poor decisions, as they are not looking at the big picture.
The question is not about whether the US can blockade the Hormuz Strait but who gets blamed for the blockade. Iran is messaging that it is making serious attempts to reopen the strait, while China and Russia are probably reinforcing the message. When people around the world suffer from the consequences of the blockade, they are more likely to blame America for their troubles. Or at least that's what Iran is trying to achieve.
No government have accepted Iranian tolls so far, that is just not going to fly ever. If every country controlling a strait started taking out such tolls that would cause much worse issues than we are seeing currently, nobody will have that.
I’m not convinced that bitcoin is stable enough to use in insurance products. The currency volatility risk is too high to reasonably cover the covered losses which will need to be covered in some other currency to do things like replace boats etc.
The volatility is only an issue if you need to convert the bitcoin in the near future. If you are willing to wait, volatility goes in your advantage. Bitcoin is volatile enough that if you wait for maybe a few years you will probably hit a pump that will far exceed the growth of most other investments. You don't even need to sell at the high to do this, the run up is often plenty enough gain.
I don’t know stuff but I feel I’ve learned that the Americans can make basic commerce unbelievably painful for whoever they choose through sanctions and disconnection from various financial systems.
I mean, kind of. If I give you an address to use to send me money, and I don't tell anyone else that address, and you don't tell anyone else that address, then nobody else can be sure who is behind the transaction.
I guess I'm just surprised they even bother trying to mask an obvious shake down under the euphemism "insurance" when it's such a trope. Obligatory Sopranos clip of old school mobsters trying to sell "protective insurance" to a Starbucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA
I echo your sentiments. Much of the 'Murika 'Murika bluster even on this thread is so childishly unreal (as if from a MAGA wet dream parallel universe) that it almost doesn't rankle anymore. One feels that even they don't believe their own propaganda anymore, and are still shouting it to somehow "will" it into existence ...
> "terror state". I would have hoped that HN users would be smarter than to parrot FOX news propaganda.
Europe also designated them as a terrorist organization, happened right before the war started. It is a terror state, its just left wing propaganda that they aren't.
I had fairly deep knowledge about the bitcoin code base 7 years ago and I got a weird vibe from it as I've seen government code before. When I learned that Tor was funded by the Navy something clicked. Just as it makes sense to have a large onion network to allow spies abroad to surf the web anonymously, it would make sense to also have a currency you can use to fund agents or groups abroad that lived outside the banking system. Bitcoin makes sense for that purpose. If you have a large border-less digital currency with many people on it, even if it is traceable, it's still less risky then using cash which you would have to launder.
The fact that many states are now using it for funding purposes to get around the banking system further adds proof to bitcoin's potential origin.
Also, it doesn't help that Satoshi Nakamoto means basically central intelligence in Japanese...
I'm not saying Bitcoin was created by the government, but if it was there are signs...
It's a lot easier to carry bitcoins than suitcases full of foreign cash or gold bars too. In China, they moved to digital currencies in part I believe to defeat CIA bags of cash (no point in getting stacks of paper money you can't use...). However, censorship resistant digital currencies allow them to continue their sneaky tricks.
This kind of thing explains in part why despite being an obvious scam, the government allowed cryptocurrencies to grow so large that eventually they formed their own feedback loop so strong that crypto bros were the biggest funders the 2024 presidential campaigns.
How do you ban this? It’s not part of swift or any us govt. backed global financial rails. If Iran(a sanctioned entity) supports this then this is more proof that the thing works.
America is not the world. They can’t go and sanction companies operating out of China or Japan who want a safe passage through hormuz. Especially now that the military power that supports the sovereign guarantee of US dollar is under siege.
I’m not gonna comment on if it’s a good idea or not, but the US government could make it illegal for any financial institution that does business in America interacting with crypto.
They could also make it illegal for any US financial institution to do business with any financial institution that interacts with crypto.
They could probably also make it a crime to buy/sell crypto in America.
They could do all those things. But they won't. This administration is all-in on crypto, it's a key mechanism for receiving gift. They're not gonna cut it off.
Its also trivial to turn your crypto into yuan and your yuan into $. So I'm not sure such a ban would be even remotely effective.
How do you ban bitcoin? It’s not hosted or supported by American financial rails or any entity like swift which can be influenced by the USA in any meaningful way.
The hypothetical was that the US "bans" bitcoin, presumably meaning it becomes illegal for US financial institutions (or US-dependent ones, which is nearly all of them) to convert bitcoin to dollars. Somebody else might give you dollars for bitcoin, but then it becomes their problem. As the saying goes, "you can't eat bitcoin".
If the Dems don't win the Senate, nothing will change until maybe February 2029 but pretty sure the same people that gave him this power of insanity are just going to vote for the next nightmare, there's no lesson learned, not even with $5 gas and $6 diesel
I don't even think a full blown recession would change anything
And now they are bringing the warships back to Cuba so get ready for next distraction from this distraction from the other distraction while they crime-spree away
Iran could easily have garnered a lot of international sympathy and support. Instead, they attacked their neighbors, impacted the world economy, and now are basically asking for blackmail money: "nice ship you have there...".
And what has this done to help Iran so far? Trump doesn't care about peoples opinions, US oil is making record profits thanks to the war so there wont be pushback from them, and Trump has 5 more months until midterms that is still plenty of time.
The main thing it resulted in is the Europe led coalition that aims to ensure the strait will never get blocked again, so Iran can never play this card again, that will lose them a lot of political power in the future since this card is now gone.
Well the strait was open and freely navigable before trump bombed them.
What Iran has learned from this is they don’t need sympathy, they need to exercise the leverage they do have, and there’s no way they’re ever going to willingly give that leverage up - they’ve seen what would happen.
> [Iran] now are basically asking for blackmail money: "nice ship you have there..."
This doesn't sound like the don to you? "hey Iran, nice country you have there..."
> Maybe Trump should bomb them some more?
If the USA is going to be bombing every country which doesn't give up their sovereignty and bend the knee to the don, then the USA is going to need more bombs.
This is an incredible 180 degree misinterpretation of who attacked whom. Iran is garnering incredible international sympathy and support. There is no just war theory that can support what America has done to Iran. It is immoral, illegal aggression.
Much of the post-WW2 American-led world order was founded partially on the United States using its military to keep international waters open. It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense. The military might is there, but this administration clearly had no idea what they were getting themselves into and did not plan accordingly. (and does not have the will or public support to do so)
The baffling part of this is that nearly everyone was aware that Iran could close the straight if pressed hard enough. The fact that this outcome is surprising represents a very loud and public failure on the administration's part.
I would amend that to be that everyone thought Iran could close the straight, but now they _know_ they can close the straight.
Ironically the US has never ratified UNCLOS. The American professed interest in maintaining right of passage does not appear to require them to be held to the same standards.
Also the Strait of Hormuz is an international strait not international waters. The entire strait lies within Iranian and Omani waters. Frankly it's a bit absurd to complain that your ships can't transit a country's waters while you bomb them.
The original ship channel was in Omani waters, not Iranian. It is entirely unreasonable to consider it reasonable for Iran to mine Omani waters.
> Frankly it's a bit absurd to complain that your ships can't transit a country's waters while you bomb them.
The issue is they block all non-Iranian ships, not just American ships. Basically nobody would have complained if they only blocked American ships.
I don't know enough about the current state of naval warfare but I've assumed this is related to the asymmetry that's emerged around protecting capital warships, especially in the scenario of a very narrow strait and a long enemy-controlled coastline. They can shoot relatively low-cost, short-range guided missiles from anywhere along the coast. Even if a warship stops the vast majority of them, only one has to get through to sink a multi-billion dollar ship that takes a decade to replace.
There are now similar asymmetries emerging across war-fighting and even though warships can still be effective (and less vulnerable) in other scenarios, this specific one seems especially bad. The other factor is that most of what ships carry through the straight isn't going directly to the U.S. so the impact on the U.S. is mostly secondary, reducing the risk the U.S. is willing to take. Of course, all this was known beforehand by military strategists which makes this all look even worse for the U.S. administration.
Cheap drones taking out an AWACS is a great example of this. The US has only 16 of these and it will cost $700 million to replace, and was taken out by a drone that probably cost less than your car.
The very definition of asymmetric.
The administration knew this very well. They've been swinging the markets wildly and intentionally several times and they and their buddies have made billions from it.
> United States using its military to keep international waters open
Being a little pedantic, as per my knowledge, the Strait of Hormuz is not “international waters”. It’s territorial waters belonging to Iran and Oman. AFAIK, Iran hasn’t ratified UNCLOS either, and claims it is not subject to it.
No, the Strait is international waters and always have been.
Wikipedia says it's been Iranian/Omani territorial waters for quite a while:
> In 1959, Iran altered the legal status of the strait by expanding its territorial sea to 12 nmi (22 km) and declaring it would recognize only transit by innocent passage through the newly expanded area. In 1972, Oman also expanded its territorial sea to 12 nmi (22 km) by decree. Thus, by 1972, the Strait of Hormuz was completely "closed" by the combined territorial waters of Iran and Oman.
The Strait may well have some, but the traffic separation scheme for shipping is absolutely in Omani territorial waters, and another part of traversing the Strait includes passing through Iranian territorial waters.
All straits other than the Bosporus (which has some additional rights to Turkey given the proximity to a major city) are international waters for the purposes of free transit, under the Montreux Convention.
The Montreux Convention only covers the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. Not all straits in the world.
Or is it posible this administration just took a win-win-win position?
1 - US oil and gas companies make money as oil proces rise. The US is the largest producer in the world.
2 - China loses it's major source of oil and gas.
3 - Iran gets neutralized. It may not look like it now, but it will probably end up that way.
3 - Iran moderates are neutralized, so hardcore fanatics from IRGC take over. Loss for literally everybody.
Otherwise, 1) and 2) are true, Europe is bleeding through the nose with buying US oil and depending on its current antagonist, not smart long term situation that we need to move away asap.
Somebody in US government is making literal billions on shorts and various trade deals just before major announcements keep happening, those are not that hard to see in markets. Current top public bet on this is trumps family and his close coworkers, and their families. If you ever want a witch hunt on traitors and collaborators against US citizens and society, smart up, forget Wall street and just follow those money very directly to culprits.
Even if this analysis were accurate, I would feel much better if the administration had intentionally gone this route rather than accidentally blundering into it.
Seems like piracy is more about the land than the sea. I can't think of any major american military action against piracy aside from actions against somali terrorists. Seems piracy as it was known historically died out as the old historic pirate havens of say Tortuga or Outer Banks went from places of anarchy to places that were controlled by some government in some capacity. And that is exactly where we see the somali piracy today: here is a state that is unable to govern its land mass and thus there is piracy, even with the american navy directly taking action against this piracy. Seemingly this has nothing to do with the american navy at all, even though that is supposedly one of its mandates and it takes actions in the spirit of advancing these anti piracy goals. The fundamentals of why piracy does and doesn't occur don't really change. It seems it comes down to government capacity on land, not from projecting naval power.
There's no insurance scheme the IRGC can concoct that protects against the US navy hitting your rudder with a 20mm gun.
US Navy has shown particular strength in this conflict against Iran, sitting in the international waters many (many, many) miles away and chillin :)
I would have never realised that things would have taken such an Onion worthy scatological turn.
s/n/d/6
Whats weak about doing the smart thing?
American destroyers and aircraft carriers have been chased away from the Strait multiple times now.
Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.
In what way were they chased away? Iran tried to sink them and didn't hit any shots, and many on Iran's side died trying. Many IRGC soldiers dying and not even scratching the paint on US vessels doesn't show US to be weak.
> Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.
Valuing the lives of your crewmen and avoid terrorists is bad how? USA not wanting their soldiers to die is weak? Would you want more deaths on US side to show strength?
USA can win this war with barely any casualties, why would you not do that? And USA being able to do this with barely any losses shows tremendous strength to me, Iran was more powerful than Ukraine but USA could establish aerial superiority immediately with no losses, this is so much stronger than what Russia displayed.
Given how expensive they are they were presumably supposed to do more than primarily stay out of range. There are less expensive ways of doing that.
They block Iranian ports so Iran can no longer export oil, that is doing a lot.
And Iran has blocked the strait too. It's at best a stalemate.
But this stalemate benefits US corporations by raising the price for oil, so its not really hurting the attacker. In order to hurt a plutocracy like USA you need to hurt the American stock market but American stocks are doing great.
That's true. Both USA and Russia should be quite happy with the current state of affairs. China not so much.
Rest of the world is quite pissed with USA. But that's just emotion. Unless it gets realised into something concrete it matters little.
We are quite incapable of dealing with a mass attack by Iranian small boats with bombs.
They are not, they updated their tactics to account for that so they destroyed a lot of Iranian small boats with bombs trying to attack the vessels. If they were incapable of countering that we would have seen American casualties in these skirmishes but only Iranians died.
Just wait for CENTCOM bulletin with their USDC blockade insurance address
You mean that these mafia style insurances are a joke, but free (as in safe and not taxed) access to the seas is something many wars have been fought over. "Insurance" selling by navies was the norm until WW1 at least.
bc1qxy2kgdytzdonaldjlostiranwartrump
Hah, far more likely that it would be $TRUMP or $PATRIOT shitcoins. Gotta skim somehow.
You realize that America "in theory" wants ships to transit the strait right? The US blockade is self-defeating.
You can't block the strait if we block the strait! lmao
The reason the US is blockading is because Iran is only partially blockading it. If Iran wasn't blockading at all then America wouldn't either. But it's pretty clear that "only shops whose countries pay a lot of money to Iran" would help Iran.
The US is blockading the Iranian coast, not the entirety of the Strait.
A Iran drone then bombing UAE's oil infrastructure as payback?
They are already doing that so it wouldn't change anything.
No they are not right now, otherwise we would have full news every day of it. Defense rockets for stuff like Patriot ran out, those systems are trivial to overwhelm and deplete in the age of cheap drones and become useless quickly.
Same for the major airports, they keep working, people keep flying to the asia, albeit in less numbers.
Exactly. The US just announces that they will take any vessel that pays for transit. So, what happens then? Any vessel that goes through and the IRGC doesn't shoot them, the US seizes. So, no one pays since they can't pay for successful transit. The fun game is that all the vessels just go at once. Any that the IRGC doesn't shoot the US takes. Any that it does shoot sink. So, no transit. Unless IRGC doesn't shoot at all, in which case everyone gets out of there with just one vessel paying the ransom. Ultimately this doesn't work for the IRGC as the US is far more capable of closing the strait than Iran is.
The US can also fuck with Iran by getting slight cooperation from ships in the Gulf of Oman by getting some small inflatable boats with remote control and AIS transmitters on them. Put the boat in the water next to a ship, turn of the ship's AIS, turn on the boats AIS, and send the boat through. Send hundreds of them. IRGC won't know what to shoot at or will expose their positions by firing at a rubber raft.
A combination of enough insurance to make it worth the time of the owner + offer the workers a generous amount to their next of kin could make it worth it. Being turned into minced meat might be worth it for some people if it means their families become rich.
Military history is full of quotes like "war is too important to be left to the generals". When you put people who focus on technical matters in charge, they often make poor decisions, as they are not looking at the big picture.
The question is not about whether the US can blockade the Hormuz Strait but who gets blamed for the blockade. Iran is messaging that it is making serious attempts to reopen the strait, while China and Russia are probably reinforcing the message. When people around the world suffer from the consequences of the blockade, they are more likely to blame America for their troubles. Or at least that's what Iran is trying to achieve.
No government have accepted Iranian tolls so far, that is just not going to fly ever. If every country controlling a strait started taking out such tolls that would cause much worse issues than we are seeing currently, nobody will have that.
I’m not convinced that bitcoin is stable enough to use in insurance products. The currency volatility risk is too high to reasonably cover the covered losses which will need to be covered in some other currency to do things like replace boats etc.
The volatility is only an issue if you need to convert the bitcoin in the near future. If you are willing to wait, volatility goes in your advantage. Bitcoin is volatile enough that if you wait for maybe a few years you will probably hit a pump that will far exceed the growth of most other investments. You don't even need to sell at the high to do this, the run up is often plenty enough gain.
Bitcoin does make the transaction publicly traceable. Either they have not realised that, seems unlikely, or they prefer it that way.
It's not about traceability, it's about not having to use the dollar as currency.
I don’t know stuff but I feel I’ve learned that the Americans can make basic commerce unbelievably painful for whoever they choose through sanctions and disconnection from various financial systems.
That's significant messaging though -- we don't have anything to hide, down with the dollar.
I have read many comments that the regime wants to money launder the inflow. Bitcoin would be rather inconvenient for that.
What would be a reason to money launder the inflow?!?
I have no clue.
What difference does it make?
> Bitcoin does make the transaction publicly traceable
It can be untraceable with CashFusion
I read that as coldfusion and I got some ptsd
I mean, kind of. If I give you an address to use to send me money, and I don't tell anyone else that address, and you don't tell anyone else that address, then nobody else can be sure who is behind the transaction.
I guess I'm just surprised they even bother trying to mask an obvious shake down under the euphemism "insurance" when it's such a trope. Obligatory Sopranos clip of old school mobsters trying to sell "protective insurance" to a Starbucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA
More of a "Bitcoin-Backed Protection Racket", presumably?
We know they are just going to spend it all on polymarket.
My first thought: what mining power does Iran have? Seems important.
Finally, the killer app for blockchain: Paying ransom to a terror state.
Is the US or Israel asking for blockchain payments for access?
"terror state". I would have hoped that HN users would be smarter than to parrot FOX news propaganda.
I echo your sentiments. Much of the 'Murika 'Murika bluster even on this thread is so childishly unreal (as if from a MAGA wet dream parallel universe) that it almost doesn't rankle anymore. One feels that even they don't believe their own propaganda anymore, and are still shouting it to somehow "will" it into existence ...
Terror state, for them doesn't include genocidal colonialist invaders like Israel.
These statements are from objective scholars including Jewish ones btw.
> "terror state". I would have hoped that HN users would be smarter than to parrot FOX news propaganda.
Europe also designated them as a terrorist organization, happened right before the war started. It is a terror state, its just left wing propaganda that they aren't.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2026...
https://archive.ph/r8TuZ
Corrupted but there's more I guess.
Lift the blockade on their ships and frozen assets and they will lift their blockade. Sounds reasonable to me.
This global tax will be Trump’s legacy. It will be what the world knows him for generations after he is gone.
I had fairly deep knowledge about the bitcoin code base 7 years ago and I got a weird vibe from it as I've seen government code before. When I learned that Tor was funded by the Navy something clicked. Just as it makes sense to have a large onion network to allow spies abroad to surf the web anonymously, it would make sense to also have a currency you can use to fund agents or groups abroad that lived outside the banking system. Bitcoin makes sense for that purpose. If you have a large border-less digital currency with many people on it, even if it is traceable, it's still less risky then using cash which you would have to launder.
The fact that many states are now using it for funding purposes to get around the banking system further adds proof to bitcoin's potential origin.
Also, it doesn't help that Satoshi Nakamoto means basically central intelligence in Japanese...
I'm not saying Bitcoin was created by the government, but if it was there are signs...
It's a lot easier to carry bitcoins than suitcases full of foreign cash or gold bars too. In China, they moved to digital currencies in part I believe to defeat CIA bags of cash (no point in getting stacks of paper money you can't use...). However, censorship resistant digital currencies allow them to continue their sneaky tricks.
This kind of thing explains in part why despite being an obvious scam, the government allowed cryptocurrencies to grow so large that eventually they formed their own feedback loop so strong that crypto bros were the biggest funders the 2024 presidential campaigns.
Maybe after the mobster losers in the white House finally get kicked out we can just ban this thing forever. How can we abide this crypto stuff?
How do you ban this? It’s not part of swift or any us govt. backed global financial rails. If Iran(a sanctioned entity) supports this then this is more proof that the thing works.
> How do you ban this?
In America? KYC would suffice.
America is not the world. They can’t go and sanction companies operating out of China or Japan who want a safe passage through hormuz. Especially now that the military power that supports the sovereign guarantee of US dollar is under siege.
> > Iran Starts Bitcoin-Backed Ship Insurance for Hormuz Strait
> In America?
No.
I’m not gonna comment on if it’s a good idea or not, but the US government could make it illegal for any financial institution that does business in America interacting with crypto.
They could also make it illegal for any US financial institution to do business with any financial institution that interacts with crypto.
They could probably also make it a crime to buy/sell crypto in America.
I wish I could pick the brain of banking finance expert on how feasible/realistic that could be after the cartel and FTO money laundering fiasco.
They could do all those things. But they won't. This administration is all-in on crypto, it's a key mechanism for receiving gift. They're not gonna cut it off.
Its also trivial to turn your crypto into yuan and your yuan into $. So I'm not sure such a ban would be even remotely effective.
China already bans crypto. If America and Europe followed suit, the market for crypto would quickly collapse
China has banned crypto about a 100 times now.
How do you ban bitcoin? It’s not hosted or supported by American financial rails or any entity like swift which can be influenced by the USA in any meaningful way.
It's supported and influenced by the USA in the sense that if you can't ever turn it into dollars it becomes much less interesting.
Anything anyone wants to spend money on, can be converted into dollars. The currency has no tell in what it is used for.
The hypothetical was that the US "bans" bitcoin, presumably meaning it becomes illegal for US financial institutions (or US-dependent ones, which is nearly all of them) to convert bitcoin to dollars. Somebody else might give you dollars for bitcoin, but then it becomes their problem. As the saying goes, "you can't eat bitcoin".
You could make it prohibitively problematic to use for most things.
Kicked out?
If the Dems don't win the Senate, nothing will change until maybe February 2029 but pretty sure the same people that gave him this power of insanity are just going to vote for the next nightmare, there's no lesson learned, not even with $5 gas and $6 diesel
I don't even think a full blown recession would change anything
And now they are bringing the warships back to Cuba so get ready for next distraction from this distraction from the other distraction while they crime-spree away
You and I and everybody else just handed $1 million to Jan 6th insurrectionists.
Whatever is going to happen over the next 24 months is already in motion. All we can do now is prepare. And maybe get a little less squeamish.
“Insurance”
Iran could easily have garnered a lot of international sympathy and support. Instead, they attacked their neighbors, impacted the world economy, and now are basically asking for blackmail money: "nice ship you have there...".
Maybe Trump should bomb them some more?
Iran knows hard currency is better than soft power
yeah right, lets kill some more Iranian schoolgirls!!
Sympathy gets you Gaza, West Bank and a few refugee camps.
Geopolitics understands one language alone.
And what has this done to help Iran so far? Trump doesn't care about peoples opinions, US oil is making record profits thanks to the war so there wont be pushback from them, and Trump has 5 more months until midterms that is still plenty of time.
The main thing it resulted in is the Europe led coalition that aims to ensure the strait will never get blocked again, so Iran can never play this card again, that will lose them a lot of political power in the future since this card is now gone.
Survival.
In what way? What do you think would be different if Iran didn't block the strait?
Trump's tweets gave a clear indication of what's coming their way next.
Yes, USA will bomb Iran, so how did blocking the strait help them?
International law, much less "international sympathy", is a meaningless phrase in 2026.
Well the strait was open and freely navigable before trump bombed them.
What Iran has learned from this is they don’t need sympathy, they need to exercise the leverage they do have, and there’s no way they’re ever going to willingly give that leverage up - they’ve seen what would happen.
> [Iran] now are basically asking for blackmail money: "nice ship you have there..."
This doesn't sound like the don to you? "hey Iran, nice country you have there..."
> Maybe Trump should bomb them some more?
If the USA is going to be bombing every country which doesn't give up their sovereignty and bend the knee to the don, then the USA is going to need more bombs.
"Iran could easily have garnered a lot of international sympathy and support"
What? I understand sympathy but I am not understanding what the path could've been to meaningful support against US aggression here.
This is an incredible 180 degree misinterpretation of who attacked whom. Iran is garnering incredible international sympathy and support. There is no just war theory that can support what America has done to Iran. It is immoral, illegal aggression.
> Iran is garnering incredible international sympathy and support.
From who?
Ukraine also gave up its nukes. Look how that worked out for them and Europe.
Well it worked to get USA and Israel to stop attacking.