Bitcoin slips below $71,000 as Trump orders U.S. to join Iran in blockade of Strait of Hormuz

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/04/12/bitcoin-slips-below-usd71-000-as-trump-orders-blockade-of-strait-of-hormuz

Get ready for the lines going down on Monday...

319 points · 52 comments · view on lemmy.world

52 Comments

Aceofspades@lemmy.ca · 146 pts · 127d (21 replies)

So he wants to end the blockade by blockading the blockade?

joekar1990@lemmy.world · 81 pts · 127d (8 replies)

He heard Iran was charging for passage and wanted in?

YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca · 52 pts · 127d (7 replies)

Most likely this; he found another grift for himself to profit from.

partofthevoice@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 127d

So he wants to eventually toll his blockade, because Iran didnt cede to splitting tolls with him, such that each vessel pay two tolls? Holy hell…

forrgott@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 127d

Exactly this. He explicitly threatened to hunt down any ship that paid the toll.

kokesh@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 127d (2 replies)

Iran wants bitcoin? Now everyone needs to pay by trumpcoin.

frongt@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 127d (1 reply)

I moved too soon and bought Ayatollahcoin

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 127d

Khamenicoin or Khomenicoin? this whole crypto thing is so confusing i just want to stick to Bigfootherium

edit: we should totally make a bigfoot memecoin and rip me off with it who's in

grimpy@lemmy.myserv.one · 1 pts · 127d

Crummy ass Pseudo Prez

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 126d

Maybe the is the huge gift he referred to

aguasemgas@lemmy.eco.br · 31 pts · 127d (3 replies)

My guess is: There are some ships passing, so he's blocking them too. Forcing China and Europe to make them act the way he wants. (TL'DR He liked the Iran's plan and he's coping it, he's a fucking idiot)

Exatron@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 127d (2 replies)

Yeah, he either wants a cut of Iran's tolls or he thinks completely blocking the strait will make the other countries mad at Iran.

No, neither of those things make sense to normal human beings.

sobchak@programming.dev · 11 pts · 127d (1 reply)

I think this entire war was so Trump and the admin could personally enrich themselves by taking control of Iran's oil in some way. They had success doing it Venezuela, and they were then convinced they could do it in Iran too. Attacking these countries would only produce limited, "well I agree, but don't like the way he's going about it" push back from establishment Dems and Western politicians in general. Israel "helping" is just a bonus, and provided further buy-in from the many Zionist politicians. They thought it would be a quick decapitation and puppeting like Venezuela was. I think Israel made things worse for the admin by bombing the people the admin had in mind for being the leaders.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 127d

your first sentence is the proper analysis. follow the money. they fucked up with the three day war so now they're enriching themselves on polymarket. and the regular market. godsdamned insider trading

lemmyng@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 127d (1 reply)

Trump: Yo dawg, I heard you like blockades.

So I blockaded your blockade so you can stop overseas trade while I crash the markets.

beatnixxx@fedia.io · 1 pts · 127d

You beat me to it.

Gsus4@mander.xyz · 20 pts · 127d (2 replies)

You're not blockading me, I'm blockading you! I bet the gulf states regret giving him all those gifts now...

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 127d

Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 127d

Time for another plane in NYC you say? /j (this is a joke i do not suppprt terrorism or religiouse violence)

FireWire400@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 127d

Double negatives or something... He doesn't need no education.

WanderingThoughts@europe.pub · 4 pts · 127d

And Iran probably shoots the first boat USA lets through, so USA wants to end the blockade by blockading, which will be blocked by Iran.

ntn888@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 127d

ofcourse he's not blocking the blockade... he's merely imitating it :D

TwinTitans@lemmy.world · 105 pts · 127d (1 reply)

The US government doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing. Everyone’s had beyond enough of it already.

zewm@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 126d

Apparently not, since they continue to let the clown show continue. Congress literally is not checking or balancing shit.

bleistift2@sopuli.xyz · 66 pts · 127d (11 replies)

The madman theory is a political theory commonly associated with the foreign policy of U.S. president Richard Nixon and his administration, who tried to make the leaders of hostile communist bloc countries think Nixon was irrational and volatile so that they would avoid provoking the U.S. in fear of an unpredictable response.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory

FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 86 pts · 127d (9 replies)

And in this case he actually is mad.

halfapage@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 127d
[ removed ]
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 127d (7 replies)

Nixon was pretty irrational himself.

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 127d (1 reply)

Nixon was corrupt, but he was also intelligent. He described on the Today Show, in 1994, Putin's rise to power, 6 years before it even happened. Purely based on being able to see how situations would unfold. And he was right.

But nobody gave a shit, because the person saying it was Nixon. Nobody wanted to hear what that asshole had to say.

I wish people today still held that same contempt for corrupt politians.

kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 127d

He certainly wasn't stupid, but a rational person would have never bugged the DNC in preparation for an election where he was that heavily favored. He only stood to lose, but he was paranoid.

Gsus4@mander.xyz · 6 pts · 127d (4 replies)

Nixon was a flower girl next to these goons in the WH.

Drusas@fedia.io · 5 pts · 127d (3 replies)

Are flower girls notoriously sane?

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 127d
Gsus4@mander.xyz · 1 pts · 127d
[ removed ]
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 127d

My mind goes straight to Daisy Girl.....but I can't make the connection between Nixon, and the first ever political attack ad.

Cocodapuf@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 126d

That's exactly what Putin has been doing for years. Unfortunately Putin is pulling it off quite well.

We're just going to take Ukraine, and then likely whatever country looks easiest to take next. But if anyone else got involved in these conflicts I will totally launch my nukes all over the place! You just watch, I'll do it, I'm fuckin nuts!

Don't even think about sending troops, because that would add fuel to an already dangerous situation (that we manufactured and could totally end at any time).

DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf · 18 pts · 127d (4 replies)

Well, this shows where Adolf's allegiances lie.

W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 35 pts · 127d (3 replies)

Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works · 20 pts · 127d (2 replies)

Funny thing is that sounds crazy even for him.

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 127d (1 reply)

Funny? Or depressing?

popekingjoe@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 127d

Yes.

Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 14 pts · 127d (3 replies)

Wait huh? So the US is now also blockading the strait?

Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 14 pts · 126d

Joining in and doing what their enemy is already doing and which they're been unable to stop, is literally the only way the US and the Trump Administration can claim they're winning anything in this war.

It's also pretty much how the Far-Right in at least America and Britain does politics: if civil society momentum builds up in a direction which isn't at all something they started or even wanted, rush to the front of the crowd and shout "Follow me!".

The thing is, it doesn't quite work at swindling people into thinking you're a great leader when you don't have a thoroughly captured Press conveniently "forgetting" that they didn't actually started it and spinning that as "leadership" of and the result as a "victory" for the Far-Right leader.

So at least outside the US and in the context of their war against Iran the whole thing looks incredibly stupid, maybe even derranged, even will the "geniouses" at the White House think this will make America and Trump look like winning.

PS: There is one take which makes them actually seem intelligent (in the kind of "intelligence" a low-level thief would display) - that the actual individuals in the Trump Administration, including Trump himself, are doing it purely to personally profit from front-running Trump's announcements. This would work but the returns would keep on getting smaller and smaller as the Market stops believing Trump's words and/or expecting that sufficient people believe them for his words to cause market movements.

Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 126d

Yes, the only ships getting through before were Iranian or their allies like China. The real threat is if US allies like France or Japan cut separate deals with Iran to move their own ships through the strait. This would undermine the US position.

Blockading the strait cuts off China and keeps other nations from circumventing the US.

andallthat@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 126d

Yes. The logic is... I mean clearly it's because.... Anyway, yes

Kissaki@feddit.org · 13 pts · 126d

"US joins Iran" - great wording - what a shitshow

skozzii@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 126d

Iran should announce they are blockading americas blockade of their blockade just to troll.

Spezi@feddit.org · 11 pts · 126d

I decided that I personally am going to block the strait of hormus as well. Please send me Paulaner Spezi and I will happily unblock it.

echodot@feddit.uk · 10 pts · 126d

So the US started a war woth Iran, which resulted in Iran blocking the strat, and now as punishment the US is also going to block it.

I get that Trump couldn't think his way out of an unlocked room, but this doesn't seem like much of a strategy even by his low standards.

TwodogsFighting@lemdro.id · 1 pts · 126d

What.

Sxan@piefed.zip · -38 pts · 127d (3 replies)

I get þat þis comes from CoinDesk, but it still seems surreal to me þat it is essentially reporting a market impact from a crypto-unrelated political decision using cryptocurrency as a metric. Isn't it weird? Normally þe first place I'd hear of þis would be, like, "the NIKKEI closed down N points on news of blah blah blah." Anyone else find it weird? No? It's just me? Ok.

tomalley8342@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 127d

Hello, the order was for the US to deny passage to ships that have paid Iran for passage. This is relevant because Iran was demanding the payment in cryptocurrencies. I hope this clears some aspects of the relationship up.

whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 127d (1 reply)

It's kinda a weird way to phrase it like one caused the other, btc had been trading at 60-70k usd for around 2.5 months from around a month before the US+Israel war against Iran started

Sxan@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 127d

Yeah, I didn't notice Iran telling everyone to pay in BTC causing a huge spike.