-snip-
What the hell lol that was so confusing.
So they basically have a black market for USD like Venezuela does? Wouldn't this scenario offer a massive profit opportunity for Iranians? Or it at least does on first glance. It'll only work if the official exchanges let you buy USD, which I doubt.
Of course, they do...
Every 3rd world country that starts buying bitcoins suddenly has a black market with pretty steep prices...
It's the norm nowadays
For those claiming arbitrage potential and errors with decimal places, let me dispel that with a scenario:
Let's say you own 1 Bitcoin, and you sold it in Iran so you could earn from arbitrage. Localbitcoins says the rate per Bitcoin is currently 874,755,539.52 IRR, so let's say you ended up with 875m IRR.
Official exchanges say that you can buy $1 for 41,970.80 IRR. That would net you a whopping ~$21k! You've more than tripled your money! Mission accomplished, right?
Well no. Official exchanges are unlikely to sell you any USD because of economic and political reasons. So you're now stuck with a rapidly devaluing IRR.
If you really want to convert IRR to USD, you have to use unofficial exchanges, which offer a $1 for 140k IRR rate. If we use that instead, you're only going to end up with ~$6k, which is just about what Bitcoin is normally worth. The whole process will be pointless.
I hope people read this lol.
Yeah, I hope that too
Nice explanation, but crunching the numbers it seems that if we take the highest rates on the black market for the rial: usd, the price of bitcoin is actually right now a bit lower than the rest of the world!
Journalism is dead! Clearly!
Unfortunately there is no regulation in the crypto media because I am sure the article itself is borne out of shady and lazy journalism of a blogger who sits behind the computer to dish out content with the sole purpose of attracting traffic. That is the motive and nothing else.
Clicks are money. That's all it matters. The more you blow something out of proportion the more clicks and satoshi you make.
Remember the whole Samsung fiasco?