I see a post describing an exchange, Coinava, now in Iran:
- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoin-iran-256445
Topic: Iran can't print paper, guy tells them to use BitCoin (Read 11598 times)
Any way you could get your hands on the Farsi translation of the instructions and post them here? I have some Iranian friends in Canada that are basically in the same boat that I'd like to give a hand to.
I can't because that would give away what non-Iranian exchanger they used who could possibly be scrutinized by sanctions enforcing secret police
https://localbitcoins.com/country/IR would be easier than what I did, I assumed there wouldn't be any listings there and didn't check.The currency traders my friend's family in Iran talked to said they could get money into a list of countries all with different fees. Fees for cash into Thailand was 8%, fees for cash into Ukraine 5%, the UK was insane fees something like 25% and Malaysia, Russia and China were also options. Typically more fees are then charged to wire the money from those countries to family members in Canada and US which obscures the origin being Iran but they didn't charge anything extra to buy something local, like meeting some guy in Bangkok from localbitcoins site to buy coins or buying codes from an ATM in Russia to fund an exchange.
After I figured out what was the cheapest and easiest method I wrote step-by step instructions "Go to the Derpa Credit Union on Hakalakadaka St in Cairo, deposit cash for this account" and had my friend here translate it into Farsi and email it back home for his family to bring in and show the currency store guy. He takes money, calls his cousin or brother in the country you want, transaction is done immediately. Sort of bitinstant Iran version
Out of paranoia I also had the hawala guys buy and send the coins to us, which you obviously don't need to do you can just get them to fund an exchange and sign in yourself and do it.
The sanctions against Iran are more of a speculation and political pressure anyway. World needs Iranian oil and other products. For some countries it is like going to hunger strike to make a shop owner lose customers lol. When Iran will get the nukes the attitude will be wholly different. Take a example of Russia doing all kinds of evil things in home and abroad. No sanctions against Russia at all.
Russia is a member of the security council at the UN. If not for this permanent veto power we would see sanctions being considered and/or enacted. Same with China.
Did you think the 1% principle only applied to people?
afaik there are sanctions in effect since early this year:
Quote
The European Union has imposed restrictions on cooperation with Iran in foreign trade, financial services, energy sectors and technologies, and banned the provision of insurance and reinsurance by insurers in member states to Iran and Iranian-owned companies.[2] On 23 January 2012, the EU agreed to an oil embargo on Iran, effective from July, and to freeze the assets of Iran's central bank.[3] The next month, Iran symbolically pre-empted the embargo by ceasing sales to Britain and France (both countries had already almost eliminated their reliance on Iranian oil, and Europe as a whole had nearly halved its Iranian imports), though some Iranian politicians called for an immediate sales halt to all EU states, so as to hurt countries like Greece, Spain and Italy who were yet to find alternative sources.[4][5]
On 17 March 2012, all Iranian banks identified as institutions in breach of EU sanctions were disconnected from the SWIFT, the world's hub of electronic financial transactions.
On 17 March 2012, all Iranian banks identified as institutions in breach of EU sanctions were disconnected from the SWIFT, the world's hub of electronic financial transactions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_sanctions_against_Iran
The sanctions against Iran are more of a speculation and political pressure anyway. World needs Iranian oil and other products. For some countries it is like going to hunger strike to make a shop owner lose customers lol. When Iran will get the nukes the attitude will be wholly different. Take a example of Russia doing all kinds of evil things in home and abroad. No sanctions against Russia at all.
Russia is a member of the security council at the UN. If not for this permanent veto power we would see sanctions being considered and/or enacted on Russia. Same with China.
Did you think the 1% principle only applied to people?
Iran is not on the council, so the bar is much lower to get folks to agree to pressuring them. This is part of the reason why we see sanctions against Iran but not Russia or China.
(they are also already part of the "Nuclear Club" that are allowed by international law to possess nuclear devices, and they have a self interest in not allowing Iran to join this club, so they will go along even when there is good business selling non-competitive or knock-off equipment, or arms to them.)
Edit, updated for clarity
All that's needed is a large mining operation in Iran.
It worked out to $20 total in fees.. but this was because the trader bought them at a good rate and the guy here paid gox spot rate so swallowed the roughly $60 in fees hawala guys charged. Thanks speculation
Didn't even know there were ppl in Tehran on localbitcoins selling for Euros will try them next time
Didn't even know there were ppl in Tehran on localbitcoins selling for Euros will try them next time
hehe. There was some luck involved, but <1% combined fee sounds awesome
Any way you could get your hands on the Farsi translation of the instructions and post them here? I have some Iranian friends in Canada that are basically in the same boat that I'd like to give a hand to.
If you promise not to tell anybody (lol, derp) the first confirmed transaction of paying cash in Tehran and receiving Bitcoins across the world worked out pretty good. A student last night on my campus called his mother in Iran to go to a local currency exchange and give the guy behind the counter USD and emailed instructions how to load an unnamed foreign bitcoin exchange (instructions provided by me, translated by the student). Currency guy in Tehran phoned his hawala network partner, as apparently they all have foreign partners, in that bitcoin exchange's country who bought the coins on their behalf and withdrew them directly to the student's wallet address in Canada (for a really awesome rate too, damn these shady currency hustlers are even savvy in the virtual money world)
Said student then turned around and sold them for cash in hand to a guy on campus using localbitcoin in just 1hr after his family paid in Tehran, which is a pretty awesome fast transfer from a country with zero money transmitting abilities and for a hawala guy who had no idea what bitcoin was but managed to fund and buy the coins anyways, and withdraw them to the correct wallet address. Word spread and now every Iranian student on campus is getting their family to go to this one store to get coins, and a girl told me the store maxed out the 24hr exchange limit before lunch just dealing with the few student's family members on my campus. There's serious potential in Iran. Now the student here has money for rent instead of wondering where the hell he was going to sleep in a month since our country cut off incoming transfers even from family members.
Said student then turned around and sold them for cash in hand to a guy on campus using localbitcoin in just 1hr after his family paid in Tehran, which is a pretty awesome fast transfer from a country with zero money transmitting abilities and for a hawala guy who had no idea what bitcoin was but managed to fund and buy the coins anyways, and withdraw them to the correct wallet address. Word spread and now every Iranian student on campus is getting their family to go to this one store to get coins, and a girl told me the store maxed out the 24hr exchange limit before lunch just dealing with the few student's family members on my campus. There's serious potential in Iran. Now the student here has money for rent instead of wondering where the hell he was going to sleep in a month since our country cut off incoming transfers even from family members.
wow, this is pretty cool.
I bet the cost was pretty high?
I bet the cost will fall with time as word gets around and usage picks up. Also: this spreads the word
awesome!
It worked out to $20 total in fees.. but this was because the trader bought them at a good rate and the guy here paid gox spot rate so swallowed the roughly $60 in fees hawala guys charged. Thanks speculation
Didn't even know there were ppl in Tehran on localbitcoins selling for Euros will try them next time
To show Iranians and citizens from other countries how to aquire/use/sell bitcoins maybe http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/ cuts straighter to the core. Unortunately they think that they are kept from providing such information due to US sanctions (http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/Iran) If anybody wants to help Iranians to use bitcoins, make an article somewhere else and link it or mirror the site somewhere outside the US!
You probably meant to link to: http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/iran.html
There is also a Reddit thread at: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/11sypf/5btc_bounty_how_do_you_buy_bitcoins_in_iran/
I dont get it. His mother spent USD(!) in such a complicated way for her son to aquire bitcoins? Why didnt he just go buy some on cavirtex.com himself?
In the beginning, the mother in Iran has USD, the student in a far away land has no money.
A couple hours later, the mother does not have the cash, but the student has USD which he can now use to buy his food and pay rent.
Bitcoins were just a part of the conduit bringing the money from the parent to the student, but can you think of another way to get money transfered so quickly?
Not just quickly, but cheaply, and the entire process avoided all banks except for the hawala guy in the unnamed country who deposited local money to the exchange. Iranian students here told me the only way to get money out of Iran is physically flying it out of the country or paying huge fees to these same hawala guys to send a wire transfers overseas, but they won't do it for less than $5k and giant fees so anything smaller is just not getting out. In this situation the guy here received $2500 CAD worth of coins and only paid $20 or so in middle man fees which I was shocked, thought it would cost a lot more
The guy who bought them here just paid regular gox spot price for them, I didn't ask what he wanted $2500 worth of bitcoins for but I'm assuming it has something to do with importing psychedelics off SR to sell on campus, so it was win all around: Iranian student can eat, the rest of us get some quality dutch acid
Now that's a huge sucess story! Bitcoin really shows how to shine here!
Which gave me an idea: how about "bitcoinsucess.com" or "bitcoinstories.com" or simply a blog, where such case studies are collected? One central place to combine efforts! Then we only need those translated in a few languages and point all students, families, everyone there!
20$ total fees on a 2500$ transfer? In a matter of hours? Around shady governmental embargos? YEEEHAW!
*activate viral avalanche mode*
Ente
Nice idea! What you describe seems more geared towards journalists to put into their stories, describing usecases of bitcoin.
To show Iranians and citizens from other countries how to aquire/use/sell bitcoins maybe http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/ cuts straighter to the core. Unortunately they think that they are kept from providing such information due to US sanctions (http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/Iran) If anybody wants to help Iranians to use bitcoins, make an article somewhere else and link it or mirror the site somewhere outside the US!
If you promise not to tell anybody (lol, derp) the first confirmed transaction of paying cash in Tehran and receiving Bitcoins across the world worked out pretty good. A student last night on my campus called his mother in Iran to go to a local currency exchange and give the guy behind the counter USD and emailed instructions how to load an unnamed foreign bitcoin exchange (instructions provided by me, translated by the student). Currency guy in Tehran phoned his hawala network partner, as apparently they all have foreign partners, in that bitcoin exchange's country who bought the coins on their behalf and withdrew them directly to the student's wallet address in Canada (for a really awesome rate too, damn these shady currency hustlers are even savvy in the virtual money world)
Said student then turned around and sold them for cash in hand to a guy on campus using localbitcoin in just 1hr after his family paid in Tehran, which is a pretty awesome fast transfer from a country with zero money transmitting abilities and for a hawala guy who had no idea what bitcoin was but managed to fund and buy the coins anyways, and withdraw them to the correct wallet address. Word spread and now every Iranian student on campus is getting their family to go to this one store to get coins, and a girl told me the store maxed out the 24hr exchange limit before lunch just dealing with the few student's family members on my campus. There's serious potential in Iran. Now the student here has money for rent instead of wondering where the hell he was going to sleep in a month since our country cut off incoming transfers even from family members.
Said student then turned around and sold them for cash in hand to a guy on campus using localbitcoin in just 1hr after his family paid in Tehran, which is a pretty awesome fast transfer from a country with zero money transmitting abilities and for a hawala guy who had no idea what bitcoin was but managed to fund and buy the coins anyways, and withdraw them to the correct wallet address. Word spread and now every Iranian student on campus is getting their family to go to this one store to get coins, and a girl told me the store maxed out the 24hr exchange limit before lunch just dealing with the few student's family members on my campus. There's serious potential in Iran. Now the student here has money for rent instead of wondering where the hell he was going to sleep in a month since our country cut off incoming transfers even from family members.
wow, this is pretty cool.
I bet the cost was pretty high?
I bet the cost will fall with time as word gets around and usage picks up. Also: this spreads the word
awesome!
I think the biggest problem for bitcoin in Iran is, that the people cant get rid of their Rials.
where bitcoins are used for remittance transfers to family members back home, then the recipient would be looking for rials.
Are you sure? I guess a 100 USD bill would be more in demand in Iran than the same amount in Rial...
However, the same could hold true for BTC.
I dont get it. His mother spent USD(!) in such a complicated way for her son to aquire bitcoins? Why didnt he just go buy some on cavirtex.com himself?
In the beginning, the mother in Iran has USD, the student in a far away land has no money.
A couple hours later, the mother does not have the cash, but the student has USD which he can now use to buy his food and pay rent.
Bitcoins were just a part of the conduit bringing the money from the parent to the student, but can you think of another way to get money transfered so quickly?
Not just quickly, but cheaply, and the entire process avoided all banks except for the hawala guy in the unnamed country who deposited local money to the exchange. Iranian students here told me the only way to get money out of Iran is physically flying it out of the country or paying huge fees to these same hawala guys to send a wire transfers overseas, but they won't do it for less than $5k and giant fees so anything smaller is just not getting out. In this situation the guy here received $2500 CAD worth of coins and only paid $20 or so in middle man fees which I was shocked, thought it would cost a lot more
The guy who bought them here just paid regular gox spot price for them, I didn't ask what he wanted $2500 worth of bitcoins for but I'm assuming it has something to do with importing psychedelics off SR to sell on campus, so it was win all around: Iranian student can eat, the rest of us get some quality dutch acid
Now that's a huge sucess story! Bitcoin really shows how to shine here!
Which gave me an idea: how about "bitcoinsucess.com" or "bitcoinstories.com" or simply a blog, where such case studies are collected? One central place to combine efforts! Then we only need those translated in a few languages and point all students, families, everyone there!
20$ total fees on a 2500$ transfer? In a matter of hours? Around shady governmental embargos? YEEEHAW!
*activate viral avalanche mode*
Ente
I dont get it. His mother spent USD(!) in such a complicated way for her son to aquire bitcoins? Why didnt he just go buy some on cavirtex.com himself?
In the beginning, the mother in Iran has USD, the student in a far away land has no money.
A couple hours later, the mother does not have the cash, but the student has USD which he can now use to buy his food and pay rent.
Bitcoins were just a part of the conduit bringing the money from the parent to the student, but can you think of another way to get money transfered so quickly?
Not just quickly, but cheaply, and the entire process avoided all banks except for the hawala guy in the unnamed country who deposited local money to the exchange. Iranian students here told me the only way to get money out of Iran is physically flying it out of the country or paying huge fees to these same hawala guys to send a wire transfers overseas, but they won't do it for less than $5k and giant fees so anything smaller is just not getting out. In this situation the guy here received $2500 CAD worth of coins and only paid $20 or so in middle man fees which I was shocked, thought it would cost a lot more
The guy who bought them here just paid regular gox spot price for them, I didn't ask what he wanted $2500 worth of bitcoins for but I'm assuming it has something to do with importing psychedelics off SR to sell on campus, so it was win all around: Iranian student can eat, the rest of us get some quality dutch acid
I dont get it. His mother spent USD(!) in such a complicated way for her son to aquire bitcoins? Why didnt he just go buy some on cavirtex.com himself?
In the beginning, the mother in Iran has USD, the student in a far away land has no money.
A couple hours later, the mother does not have the cash, but the student has USD which he can now use to buy his food and pay rent.
Bitcoins were just a part of the conduit bringing the money from the parent to the student, but can you think of another way to get money transfered so quickly?
I think the biggest problem for bitcoin in Iran is, that the people cant get rid of their Rials.
where bitcoins are used for remittance transfers to family members back home, then the recipient would be looking for rials. if this persists, these local currency exchanges will figure out how to buy and sell bitcoins themselves rather than simply directing a cash transfer to occur somewhere else for purchasing coins.
I dont get it. His mother spent USD(!) in such a complicated way for her son to aquire bitcoins? Why didnt he just go buy some on cavirtex.com himself?
Secondly, I think the biggest problem for bitcoin in Iran is, that the people cant get rid of their Rials. There is little incentive to trade USD for BTC. If they could however find a way to exchange Rials for BTC we would see some atomic bitcoin explosion in Iran even without western help
Secondly, I think the biggest problem for bitcoin in Iran is, that the people cant get rid of their Rials. There is little incentive to trade USD for BTC. If they could however find a way to exchange Rials for BTC we would see some atomic bitcoin explosion in Iran even without western help
Lolz, the student in Canada had no money. His family used to send him regular payments for food/rent/ect until our retarded government clamped down on all transfers FROM Iran, so he needed to get money from Iran into his hands to buy food. All the Iranian students I know on campus told me their families changed savings into foreign currencies years ago as the Rial has always been shaky.
He's not the only student, there's thousands of students overseas that are cutoff from any money, and some are fucked because their family has no foreign currency reserves and Iran keeps shutting down the exchangers to prop up their now worthless paper
http://rabble.ca/news/2012/03/economic-sanctions-against-iran-affect-students-canada
Someone can't smuggle a flash drive or a CD/DVD into iran?
Make mass copies and start handing them out. Setup a way to broadcast information from nodes from inside iran (if firewall) to nodes outside.
Make mass copies and start handing them out. Setup a way to broadcast information from nodes from inside iran (if firewall) to nodes outside.
If you promise not to tell anybody (lol, derp) the first confirmed transaction of paying cash in Tehran and receiving Bitcoins across the world worked out pretty good. A student last night on my campus called his mother in Iran to go to a local currency exchange and give the guy behind the counter USD and emailed instructions how to load an unnamed foreign bitcoin exchange (instructions provided by me, translated by the student). Currency guy in Tehran phoned his hawala network partner, as apparently they all have foreign partners, in that bitcoin exchange's country who bought the coins on their behalf and withdrew them directly to the student's wallet address in Canada (for a really awesome rate too, damn these shady currency hustlers are even savvy in the virtual money world)
Said student then turned around and sold them for cash in hand to a guy on campus using localbitcoin in just 1hr after his family paid in Tehran, which is a pretty awesome fast transfer from a country with zero money transmitting abilities and for a hawala guy who had no idea what bitcoin was but managed to fund and buy the coins anyways, and withdraw them to the correct wallet address. Word spread and now every Iranian student on campus is getting their family to go to this one store to get coins, and a girl told me the store maxed out the 24hr exchange limit before lunch just dealing with the few student's family members on my campus. There's serious potential in Iran. Now the student here has money for rent instead of wondering where the hell he was going to sleep in a month since our country cut off incoming transfers even from family members.
Note to fascist currency secret police in my country: I simply advised, did not participate or conspire in any actual money handling or "illegal violation of sanctions" which are bullshit sanctions anyways. I'm also using campus wifi, come at me bro. No billions were spent on exporting Iranian oil with bitcoins today, or terrorism. No banks were used in countries currently with sanctions against Iran unless you count the guy selling bitcoins locally as a bank
Said student then turned around and sold them for cash in hand to a guy on campus using localbitcoin in just 1hr after his family paid in Tehran, which is a pretty awesome fast transfer from a country with zero money transmitting abilities and for a hawala guy who had no idea what bitcoin was but managed to fund and buy the coins anyways, and withdraw them to the correct wallet address. Word spread and now every Iranian student on campus is getting their family to go to this one store to get coins, and a girl told me the store maxed out the 24hr exchange limit before lunch just dealing with the few student's family members on my campus. There's serious potential in Iran. Now the student here has money for rent instead of wondering where the hell he was going to sleep in a month since our country cut off incoming transfers even from family members.
Note to fascist currency secret police in my country: I simply advised, did not participate or conspire in any actual money handling or "illegal violation of sanctions" which are bullshit sanctions anyways. I'm also using campus wifi, come at me bro. No billions were spent on exporting Iranian oil with bitcoins today, or terrorism. No banks were used in countries currently with sanctions against Iran unless you count the guy selling bitcoins locally as a bank
I dont get it. His mother spent USD(!) in such a complicated way for her son to aquire bitcoins? Why didnt he just go buy some on cavirtex.com himself?
Secondly, I think the biggest problem for bitcoin in Iran is, that the people cant get rid of their Rials. There is little incentive to trade USD for BTC. If they could however find a way to exchange Rials for BTC we would see some atomic bitcoin explosion in Iran even without western help
If you promise not to tell anybody (lol, derp) the first confirmed transaction of paying cash in Tehran and receiving Bitcoins across the world worked out pretty good. A student last night on my campus called his mother in Iran to go to a local currency exchange and give the guy behind the counter USD and emailed instructions how to load an unnamed foreign bitcoin exchange (instructions provided by me, translated by the student). Currency guy in Tehran phoned his hawala network partner, as apparently they all have foreign partners, in that bitcoin exchange's country who bought the coins on their behalf and withdrew them directly to the student's wallet address in Canada (for a really awesome rate too, damn these shady currency hustlers are even savvy in the virtual money world)
Said student then turned around and sold them for cash in hand to a guy on campus using localbitcoin in just 1hr after his family paid in Tehran, which is a pretty awesome fast transfer from a country with zero money transmitting abilities and for a hawala guy who had no idea what bitcoin was but managed to fund and buy the coins anyways, and withdraw them to the correct wallet address. Word spread and now every Iranian student on campus is getting their family to go to this one store to get coins, and a girl told me the store maxed out the 24hr exchange limit before lunch just dealing with the few student's family members on my campus. There's serious potential in Iran. Now the student here has money for rent instead of wondering where the hell he was going to sleep in a month since our country cut off incoming transfers even from family members.
Said student then turned around and sold them for cash in hand to a guy on campus using localbitcoin in just 1hr after his family paid in Tehran, which is a pretty awesome fast transfer from a country with zero money transmitting abilities and for a hawala guy who had no idea what bitcoin was but managed to fund and buy the coins anyways, and withdraw them to the correct wallet address. Word spread and now every Iranian student on campus is getting their family to go to this one store to get coins, and a girl told me the store maxed out the 24hr exchange limit before lunch just dealing with the few student's family members on my campus. There's serious potential in Iran. Now the student here has money for rent instead of wondering where the hell he was going to sleep in a month since our country cut off incoming transfers even from family members.
Awesome demonstration of the power of bitcoins.
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