Bitcoin miners safe from Trump’s Strait of Hormuz blockade — but traders aren’t so lucky

Oil prices have risen above the $100 mark after US President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. But Bitcoin miners say their industry is largely sheltered from oil-related woes as much of the rest of the world panics about fuel prices.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude rose to just short of $105 on April 13, 2026, up over 8% from Sunday. For the Bitcoin mining industry, oil prices provide only a “modest tailwind,” Raphael Zagury, CEO of the crypto mining firm Elektron Energy, told DL News.

“[Oil prices] can ease energy costs in some regions and improve margins at the edge, but it’s not the main driver,” Zagury said. Bitcoin prices climbed last week on news of a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran, but began to tumble back towards the $70,000 mark after the collapse of peace talks over the weekend.

Limited oil exposure

For Bitcoin miners, hashprice, the expected daily revenue miners earn for their computing power expenditure, is a far more important metric than oil prices, Zagury said. Network competition, or the number of miners active in the global market, is another key factor, he said.

“[These metrics] matter much more than short-term moves in fuel,” said Zagury. Most Bitcoin miners don’t even use oil, say academics. Researchers in Cambridge found that over 52% of global miners use renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric power and wind turbines, or nuclear energy.

“Only a small portion of global hashrate is directly exposed to oil-sensitive energy markets,” Markus Levin, co-founder of the blockchain company XYO, told DL News. “Production costs remain driven by a broader mix of electricity inputs.”

Energy crisis fears

The Cambridge researchers found miners’ reliance on oil, gas, and coal has dropped by 15% since 2022. As such, the experts said, while a prolonged blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could spark a global energy crisis, the immediate effect on Bitcoin miners would be peripheral.

“Lower energy prices can ease pressure on miner margins and reduce forced selling,” said Levin. “But this is a marginal factor compared to the macro liquidity cycle.”

Good news for miners, perhaps. But not so for the rest of the world, crypto community included.

“[Oil] reserves are severely depleted, Gulf infrastructure is damaged, and Iran has demonstrated it can close the world’s most critical energy chokepoint at will,” Matthew Pinnock, chief operating officer at the crypto firm Altura, told DL News. That could lead to a “stagflationary environment, with elevated energy costs and contracting growth,” Pinnock said, “That is not a clean backdrop for risk assets [like Bitcoin].”