Iran's Assembly of Experts named Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, as the country's new supreme leader - the first father-to-son succession in the Islamic Republic's history.
The IRGC immediately pledged full obedience.
Bitcoin (BTC) briefly fell below $66,000 that day as oil surged and markets priced in a continuation, not a winding down, of the conflict.
Mojtaba, a Shia cleric born in Mashhad in 1969, spent decades as an informal power broker in his father's office with deep ties to the Revolutionary Guard.
His appointment came days after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28 that also eliminated other senior leadership figures.
What the Succession Means
Analysts widely read the appointment as a hardline continuity signal rather than an opening for negotiation. Iranian armed forces said they could sustain at least six months of high-intensity conflict at the current operational pace.
Israel struck fuel depots in Tehran's Kuhak and Shahran districts over the weekend, with Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen warning that refineries and power stations remain on the target list.
Trump responded on Truth Social: "Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay." He offered no timeline for ending operations.
The Crypto Dimension
Iran's cryptocurrency ecosystem reached $7.78 billion in 2025 and functions as both a civilian financial lifeline and a state sanctions-evasion tool.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic recorded a 700% spike in outflows from Nobitex - Iran's largest exchange with 11 million users - within minutes of the Feb. 28 strikes. Internet connectivity then collapsed approximately 99%, halting further transfers.
The Chainalysis 2026 Crime Report, published this week, found that IRGC-linked entities accounted for more than 50% of value received by Iranian crypto platforms in Q4 2025.
Separately, state-sponsored Bitcoin mining - which uses subsidized electricity to mine at an estimated $1,300 per coin - accounts for 2%–5% of global hash rate. Military strikes on power substations now threaten that infrastructure directly.
Mojtaba Khamenei's IRGC alignment increases the likelihood of that state crypto apparatus remaining intact under his leadership, while also raising the probability of tighter Western sanctions targeting the same infrastructure civilians rely on.
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