Donald Trump said this week that the Iran war will end soon as talks over the Strait of Hormuz continue. On the same day the rial fell to a record low, and Bitcoin held near $83,000.

A forecast from Washington costs its author nothing. A price in Tehran's currency market costs someone real money, which is why the second number deserves the more careful reading. The rial's record low belongs on the ledger of the Iranian households and traders who hold it, and on the books of the central bank that is supposed to defend it.

The market is telling a different story from the president's. Anyone expecting the war to end soon, with Hormuz reopened and settlement channels working again, would be reluctant to sell rials at a record-low price. The sellers are reading the same forecast and declining to act on it, or, more precisely, acting on the opposite view.

Bitcoin near $83,000 sits in the same picture, though the news file does not tie the two together and I will not pretend it does. It is the alternative store of value that a currency losing purchasing power tends to push people toward. It is a price to keep beside the rial's.

The Hormuz talks will tell us the terms eventually. The rial will show whether anyone in Tehran believes them, and its next daily print is the earliest reading available.