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Iran authorizes use of cryptocurrency for imports payment

74 points by ur-whale 6y ago

ur-whale 6y ago
I'm genuinely surprised it took so long to happen. Many countries (China, Russia, Iran, etc...) have a giant incentive to escape SWIFT and US-centric control over value transfer. IIRC, there has been effort by China an Russia to circumvent the petro-dollar jail. Why re-invent the wheel, when a system already exists for doing just that? Or maybe nation states know something that everyone else doesn't wrt the actual robustness of crypto against state-sponsored attacks.
- sanxiyn 6y ago
  China is working on digital yuan. It is currently undergoing field testing.
- BelenusMordred 6y ago
  > Many countries (China, Russia, Iran, etc...) have a giant incentive to escape SWIFT and US-centric control over value transfer. While this is true, they also are petrified of something they themselves don't have authority over. I don't think the hesitance is surprising, these are governments that are obsessed with controlling most aspects of their citizens lives.
- yardie 6y ago
  > Why re-invent the wheel, when a system already exists for doing just that? They don't even want to use that system. They want to create yet another that is state-controlled.
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    Yeah, I hear you, but there's a built-in contradiction in there: if you want to trade with other countries, this whole "state-controlled" business doesn't work too well. The US are only in this controlling situation because of a historical accident (WWII). If they hope to establish non US-controlled ways of exchanging value, I suspect they'll have to relinquish some amount of control, unless - of course - China becomes much more preponderant both economically and militarily.
- csomar 6y ago
  Bitcoin and permission-less currencies are bad news for countries like Russia and Iran. These countries can already transact through designated individuals and off-shore companies. Crypto still need an off-on ramp to traditional finance. On the other hand, these nation states would use cryto if they were technical and knowledgeable enough of the intricacies of such market. Venezuela already launched its own crypto-currency (the Petrodollar) which was a complete flop. You'd think that a nation state with all its resources, people, sovereignty and army would be able to make a cryptocurrency (probably an Ethereum fork) work. Well, it's simple: They can't. Most countries today rely on a system they barely understand how it works. They collect taxes, print money and try to export/import stuff. The whole system is glued together by a nation that somehow appeared before, during or shortly after the second world war. Their answer to instability in markets is almost always restrictions (either in money transfers, or blocking imports, or arbitrarily confiscating wealth). These systems have barely evolved especially in less developed countries, and even in first class countries are still quite archaic. It doesn't help that these system do not have knowledgeable people about these technologies who could help shape policy, recognize trends or act. The only reason these countries still have semi-functioning finances is that a large portion of the population never heard, or have the technical capabilities to deal with crypto. The newer generation is going to force a re-draw of nation states and probably bankrupt some governments in the process (it's already starting to happen).
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Many countries (China, Russia, Iran, etc...) have a giant incentive to escape SWIFT and US-centric control over value transfer. Well, the good news on that front is that most international money transfers use the IBAN system rather than swift, and IBAN is run by a consortium of EU banks.
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    > most international money transfers use the IBAN system Source? And while it may be the case by number of transactions, I'd be very surprised if that was true by volume.
    - valdiorn 6y ago
      What would they use other than IBAN/swift?? Edit; I think your parent comment is confusing concepts. IBAN is international bank account number. You enter an Iban as the target address for your swift transfer. I wasn't aware of a different system that also uses IBAN ... is there one?
      - ur-whale 6y ago
        IBAN are a European thing. When you wire money from e.g. Europe to the US, they don't speak IBAN, you have to specify US-centric bank account designations.
nobrains 6y ago
I don't think this news is correct. I was unable to find any official corroborating info about this.
- deleted 6y ago
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- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
axiosgunnar 6y ago
> Due to the high price of electricity and gas for the extraction of cryptocurrencies in Iran, the result of changing this decree will be the reduction of bitcoin production in Iran, because no miner is interested in providing his bitcoin to the government,” Omid Alavi, a CEO of an approved bitcoin mining farm in Iran, told Bitcoin Magazine at the time. So it‘s more like "Iran nationalizes Bitcoin mines“?
trident5000 6y ago
Bitcoin is becoming the base layer of global finance faster than anyone could have imagined just a year ago.
- Covzire 6y ago
  I don't think it'll ever happen. The global banking system has and will enjoy a favored legitimacy status with governments that they would have to willingly give up. Even though Crypto is decentralized, it's the tributaries into the classic financial system that give it it's value and if governments start putting up blockades, it's value and use will plummet. They just need a good reason to and I can't think of a better one than an oppressive pariah state like NK or Iran circumventing sanctions with it.
  - bingbong70 6y ago
    Bitcoin adoption from the grassroots level will kill systems with "favored status", especially in places that claim to be free societies. Right now in the US adoption is happening on the city/state level and expanding outwards, this is not a fluke.
laydn 6y ago
They are going to have to figure out how to spend all that cryptocoins as well, which I think will be the more difficult part.
- ur-whale 6y ago
  > They are going to have to figure out how to spend all that cryptocoins Not if they find an exchange - say in China - willing to exchange that coin for local currency and let them purchase goods with said local currency. Not as hard as you might believe, especially at a sovereign nation level.
sashimi-houdini 6y ago
Bitcoin... where adoption by pariah states (this article) and criminals (elsewhere) is presented as good news
- oraphalous 6y ago
  Pariah state... Oh you mean because it's the one that had a foreign power overthrow its democratically elected leader, replacing them with a despot... ...right yeah I getcha... their desire to bypass the financial system put in place by that very same foreign power must have absolutely no moral standing whatsover, especially since their democracy was ruined.
  - sashimi-houdini 6y ago
    'Extended meaning "social outcast" is attested by 1819.' ... I think we can agree that Iran fits that description, no matter your take on the events of 1979 and thereafter
  - bafumio 6y ago
    Or he references stuff like 'you get hanged on a carcrain for certain things'
  - martin8412 6y ago
    Many, if not most, of threats to the Western countries are directly or indirectly consequences of US foreign policy.
- Emma_Goldman 6y ago
  I don't think labelling Iran a 'pariah state' is helpful. It was the United States that unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, that tacitly accepts Israel's repeated assassination of Iranian scientists, and that launched a catastrophic invasion of its neighbour on a lie. Not to mention, during the Cold War, that it assisted Saddam's war of aggression against Iran, shot down an Irania commercial airliner, and overthrew Iran's democratically elected government and imposed a pliant autocratic in its stead. Which isn't to say this absolves Iran of its oppression of internal opposition or funding of terrorists. But there is no Manichean opposition, and the United States' belligerence has tended to strengthen the conservative hardliners inside of Iran, at the expense of those who want to normalise relations and shift the balance of power in the country's theocratic-democratic structure towards the latter.
frankbreetz 6y ago
It can only use bitcoin "that has been mined by officially sanctioned miners to pay for imports" Seems pretty easy to sanction Iran, just ban the use of those same coins. I am assuming "sanctioned" means mined by Iranians. This also gets in the way of the fungibility argument that is supposed to be in Bitcoins advantage.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  > Seems pretty easy to sanction Iran, just ban the use of those same coins. Seems pretty easy for Iran to unsanction itself, just remove the "official miner" requirement.
uKGgZfqqNZtf7Za 6y ago
This brought up a though for me. Are PoS cryptocurrencies halal? Would it be considered gambling or the rewards from staking riba? I'm not a muslim but I would like to understand,
neo_spike 6y ago
Hmm use of cryptocurrency to escape sanctions , wasn't this one of the drivers behind the creation of cryptocurrency?
- ur-whale 6y ago
  >wasn't this one of the drivers behind the creation of cryptocurrency? Nope. Excerpt from genesis [1]: 00000080 01 04 45 54 68 65 20 54 69 6D 65 73 20 30 33 2F ..EThe Times 03/ 00000090 4A 61 6E 2F 32 30 30 39 20 43 68 61 6E 63 65 6C Jan/2009 Chancel 000000A0 6C 6F 72 20 6F 6E 20 62 72 69 6E 6B 20 6F 66 20 lor on brink of 000000B0 73 65 63 6F 6E 64 20 62 61 69 6C 6F 75 74 20 66 second bailout f 000000C0 6F 72 20 62 61 6E 6B 73 FF FF FF FF 01 00 F2 05 or banksÿÿÿÿ..ò. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block
LatteLazy 6y ago
As someone who thinks US sanctions are unfair and counterproductive I support this.
ArkanExplorer 6y ago
At this point, isn't Bitcoin a national security threat to the USA? The value of the coins mined in Iran is directly tied to the current spot price of Bitcoin. Isn't in the USA's interest now to ban the exchange of Proof of Work coins in the USA? Which will subsequently crash the price and weaken Iran.

74 points by ur-whale 6y ago

I'm genuinely surprised it took so long to happen. Many countries (China, Russia, Iran, etc...) have a giant incentive to escape SWIFT and US-centric control over value transfer. IIRC, there has been effort by China an Russia to circumvent the petro-dollar jail. Why re-invent the wheel, when a system already exists for doing just that? Or maybe nation states know something that everyone else doesn't wrt the actual robustness of crypto against state-sponsored attacks.

sanxiyn 6y ago
China is working on digital yuan. It is currently undergoing field testing.
BelenusMordred 6y ago
> Many countries (China, Russia, Iran, etc...) have a giant incentive to escape SWIFT and US-centric control over value transfer. While this is true, they also are petrified of something they themselves don't have authority over. I don't think the hesitance is surprising, these are governments that are obsessed with controlling most aspects of their citizens lives.
yardie 6y ago
> Why re-invent the wheel, when a system already exists for doing just that? They don't even want to use that system. They want to create yet another that is state-controlled.
- ur-whale 6y ago
  Yeah, I hear you, but there's a built-in contradiction in there: if you want to trade with other countries, this whole "state-controlled" business doesn't work too well. The US are only in this controlling situation because of a historical accident (WWII). If they hope to establish non US-controlled ways of exchanging value, I suspect they'll have to relinquish some amount of control, unless - of course - China becomes much more preponderant both economically and militarily.
csomar 6y ago
Bitcoin and permission-less currencies are bad news for countries like Russia and Iran. These countries can already transact through designated individuals and off-shore companies. Crypto still need an off-on ramp to traditional finance. On the other hand, these nation states would use cryto if they were technical and knowledgeable enough of the intricacies of such market. Venezuela already launched its own crypto-currency (the Petrodollar) which was a complete flop. You'd think that a nation state with all its resources, people, sovereignty and army would be able to make a cryptocurrency (probably an Ethereum fork) work. Well, it's simple: They can't. Most countries today rely on a system they barely understand how it works. They collect taxes, print money and try to export/import stuff. The whole system is glued together by a nation that somehow appeared before, during or shortly after the second world war. Their answer to instability in markets is almost always restrictions (either in money transfers, or blocking imports, or arbitrarily confiscating wealth). These systems have barely evolved especially in less developed countries, and even in first class countries are still quite archaic. It doesn't help that these system do not have knowledgeable people about these technologies who could help shape policy, recognize trends or act. The only reason these countries still have semi-functioning finances is that a large portion of the population never heard, or have the technical capabilities to deal with crypto. The newer generation is going to force a re-draw of nation states and probably bankrupt some governments in the process (it's already starting to happen).
gamblor956 6y ago
Many countries (China, Russia, Iran, etc...) have a giant incentive to escape SWIFT and US-centric control over value transfer. Well, the good news on that front is that most international money transfers use the IBAN system rather than swift, and IBAN is run by a consortium of EU banks.
- ur-whale 6y ago
  > most international money transfers use the IBAN system Source? And while it may be the case by number of transactions, I'd be very surprised if that was true by volume.
  - valdiorn 6y ago
    What would they use other than IBAN/swift?? Edit; I think your parent comment is confusing concepts. IBAN is international bank account number. You enter an Iban as the target address for your swift transfer. I wasn't aware of a different system that also uses IBAN ... is there one?
    - ur-whale 6y ago
      IBAN are a European thing. When you wire money from e.g. Europe to the US, they don't speak IBAN, you have to specify US-centric bank account designations.

nobrains 6y ago

I don't think this news is correct. I was unable to find any official corroborating info about this.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

axiosgunnar 6y ago

> Due to the high price of electricity and gas for the extraction of cryptocurrencies in Iran, the result of changing this decree will be the reduction of bitcoin production in Iran, because no miner is interested in providing his bitcoin to the government,” Omid Alavi, a CEO of an approved bitcoin mining farm in Iran, told Bitcoin Magazine at the time. So it‘s more like "Iran nationalizes Bitcoin mines“?

trident5000 6y ago

Bitcoin is becoming the base layer of global finance faster than anyone could have imagined just a year ago.

Covzire 6y ago
I don't think it'll ever happen. The global banking system has and will enjoy a favored legitimacy status with governments that they would have to willingly give up. Even though Crypto is decentralized, it's the tributaries into the classic financial system that give it it's value and if governments start putting up blockades, it's value and use will plummet. They just need a good reason to and I can't think of a better one than an oppressive pariah state like NK or Iran circumventing sanctions with it.
- bingbong70 6y ago
  Bitcoin adoption from the grassroots level will kill systems with "favored status", especially in places that claim to be free societies. Right now in the US adoption is happening on the city/state level and expanding outwards, this is not a fluke.

laydn 6y ago

They are going to have to figure out how to spend all that cryptocoins as well, which I think will be the more difficult part.

ur-whale 6y ago
> They are going to have to figure out how to spend all that cryptocoins Not if they find an exchange - say in China - willing to exchange that coin for local currency and let them purchase goods with said local currency. Not as hard as you might believe, especially at a sovereign nation level.

sashimi-houdini 6y ago

Bitcoin... where adoption by pariah states (this article) and criminals (elsewhere) is presented as good news

oraphalous 6y ago
Pariah state... Oh you mean because it's the one that had a foreign power overthrow its democratically elected leader, replacing them with a despot... ...right yeah I getcha... their desire to bypass the financial system put in place by that very same foreign power must have absolutely no moral standing whatsover, especially since their democracy was ruined.
- sashimi-houdini 6y ago
  'Extended meaning "social outcast" is attested by 1819.' ... I think we can agree that Iran fits that description, no matter your take on the events of 1979 and thereafter
- bafumio 6y ago
  Or he references stuff like 'you get hanged on a carcrain for certain things'
- martin8412 6y ago
  Many, if not most, of threats to the Western countries are directly or indirectly consequences of US foreign policy.
Emma_Goldman 6y ago
I don't think labelling Iran a 'pariah state' is helpful. It was the United States that unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, that tacitly accepts Israel's repeated assassination of Iranian scientists, and that launched a catastrophic invasion of its neighbour on a lie. Not to mention, during the Cold War, that it assisted Saddam's war of aggression against Iran, shot down an Irania commercial airliner, and overthrew Iran's democratically elected government and imposed a pliant autocratic in its stead. Which isn't to say this absolves Iran of its oppression of internal opposition or funding of terrorists. But there is no Manichean opposition, and the United States' belligerence has tended to strengthen the conservative hardliners inside of Iran, at the expense of those who want to normalise relations and shift the balance of power in the country's theocratic-democratic structure towards the latter.

frankbreetz 6y ago

It can only use bitcoin "that has been mined by officially sanctioned miners to pay for imports" Seems pretty easy to sanction Iran, just ban the use of those same coins. I am assuming "sanctioned" means mined by Iranians. This also gets in the way of the fungibility argument that is supposed to be in Bitcoins advantage.

StavrosK 6y ago
> Seems pretty easy to sanction Iran, just ban the use of those same coins. Seems pretty easy for Iran to unsanction itself, just remove the "official miner" requirement.

uKGgZfqqNZtf7Za 6y ago

This brought up a though for me. Are PoS cryptocurrencies halal? Would it be considered gambling or the rewards from staking riba? I'm not a muslim but I would like to understand,

neo_spike 6y ago

Hmm use of cryptocurrency to escape sanctions , wasn't this one of the drivers behind the creation of cryptocurrency?

ur-whale 6y ago
>wasn't this one of the drivers behind the creation of cryptocurrency? Nope. Excerpt from genesis [1]: 00000080 01 04 45 54 68 65 20 54 69 6D 65 73 20 30 33 2F ..EThe Times 03/ 00000090 4A 61 6E 2F 32 30 30 39 20 43 68 61 6E 63 65 6C Jan/2009 Chancel 000000A0 6C 6F 72 20 6F 6E 20 62 72 69 6E 6B 20 6F 66 20 lor on brink of 000000B0 73 65 63 6F 6E 64 20 62 61 69 6C 6F 75 74 20 66 second bailout f 000000C0 6F 72 20 62 61 6E 6B 73 FF FF FF FF 01 00 F2 05 or banksÿÿÿÿ..ò. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

LatteLazy 6y ago

As someone who thinks US sanctions are unfair and counterproductive I support this.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago

At this point, isn't Bitcoin a national security threat to the USA? The value of the coins mined in Iran is directly tied to the current spot price of Bitcoin. Isn't in the USA's interest now to ban the exchange of Proof of Work coins in the USA? Which will subsequently crash the price and weaken Iran.