Topic: Iran can't print paper, guy tells them to use BitCoin - page 2. (Read 11598 times)

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

With an accelerating inflation rate currently estimated at more than 196%, you'd only buy rials if you could be sure that you could get rid of them pretty much immediately. In other words, the rial is a fool's trade at this point.

Whoops, sorry for implying you mixed up those cities then! :-)
Interesting, thanks for sharing those insights!


Shame on me, thanks! :-)


Hmm, I don't think that's a problem. It is the market rate, after all! It is way below the official rate, but it is the rate where people are buying Rial for. And we can assume they get their few % on there too.

Ente

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.

@ all such ideas: I think the biggest problem may be that nobody wants to buy Rials right now, because they become virtually worthless in no time! Charly Shrem made a quick comment to this issue during his latest interview session on adam VS the man:
http://youtu.be/2BqpYbzZ3NI?t=32m5s

Lot's of news articles on how banks in Turkey still deal with Iran, they don't believe in sanctions. In fact Iran has a load of banks operating in Turkey and their ATM system works there. Iran is also full of currency exchangers where everybody is changing their rials into USD and other currency to hold since Rials are quickly becoming worthless. Makes sense these exchanger houses can just sell bitcoins to be traded to overseas family members

Though they are shutting down the currency traders again because they refuse to exchange using the government provided rate and instead use the market rate http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/iranian-riot-police-storm-exchange-amid-currency-nosedive/article4584790/

Istanbul: Capital of Turkey
Tehran: Capital of Iran

The problem, of course, is how the Tehran' bank (account) gets bitcoins then. Exchanging Iranian Rial to USD seems to have horrible official exchange rates. If you want to exchange Rial to Bitcoin face-to-face, you need a working Bitcoin economy there. Just the same as "here", we are still a few steps away from that..
But then I don't know much about currency exchange and grey markets in such a situation. Surely you could buy gold for Rial, and exchange gold for bitcoins then. If the whole Iranian Bitcoin economy was centralized, with only one, two people dealing large Rial/gold/bitcoin sums, it would be possible to do. So, how is the current situation with US$ there?

Ente

This a good idea. Our idiot politicians here in the US seem to forget that economic sanctions have been the cause of many wars.

Unless it already exists somebody needs to set up a major bitcoin (secure) exchange in Istanbul. Canada is full of Iranian students who can't get any money from back home because there's no money transfer existing that can do it. Iranian parents could walk into a local currency changer, deposit cash and then said exchanger uses the Istanbul banks to transfer money into the exchange to get bitcoins. Then they can send them to their kid in Toronto who can cash out locally avoiding all the black market high fees and just pay the white market high fees

Most of these kids just looking for small $1-5k transactions nothing major

Does this forum have a facepalm smiley?

Good luck in getting USD into Iran - I guess you haven't tried it or don't know any Iranis, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances

But the "lurking threat" you fear is exactly this works.



That is showing how someone with $100 quickly saw that amount's buying power (in terms of Iranian rial / IRR) doubled in just a few weeks.   It sucks for those who were late to get rid of their rials, or never exchanged them out at all, but the end result is more dollars moved in a result of that increase in buying power.

If Bitcoins trade at a premium because they are scarce, more will be drawn in by the increase in the buying power of those bitcoins.  Since bitcoins can flow easier (i.e., electronically) than dollars do, which do you think is capable of reaching market equilibrium first?   On one hand you have bitcoins that can be received by millions of Iranians with family abroad who can receive bitcoins via a mobile or PC.  On the other you have paper money that must be smuggled through border crossings, or dribbled through via travelers from abroad or the few other entry vectors.

Of course, we all are well aware that bitcoin doesn't just explode onto the scene, but it probably does have a role that can be significant for both Bitcoin and for the pioneers who use it

Getting enough* Bitcoins into Iran to have a meaningful economy in BTC there might be a harder task than getting the blocks/transactions to/from miners or the software into Iran. Unless someone is helping people there (meaning: Bitcoin websites/documentation/information/services in farsi!) I just don't see it happening. What about great concepts that would benefit people in the US a lot, but they are only documented + in use in Suaheli for example? Technology and ideas are not just generated and implemented in the english speaking world or the US and then dribble down to the "more stupid and underdeveloped" parts of the world (yes, I'm exaggerating)...

Either someone donates a whole bunch of BTC into Iran and finds a way to randomly distribute them similar to mining (which at current difficulties + USD prices is not really an option there) so they can bootstrap or there's another way how to exchange goods/gold/iranian money for BTC that we need to establish and haven't thought about yet.

* Yes, I know in theory "you can run a whole economy off of 1 single BTC!!!11121!". Currently however NOT without introducing questionable concepts like colored coins making 1 coin not equal to another coin. Otherwise there would be always the lurking threat of someone coming into Iran with 10 BTC he bought for ~100 USD and having a buying power many times that.

I won't even try to interpret any sense into that.
/ignore

Ente

easy solution.. have a contact outside of the country send them a copy.. better yet have a trusted source set up a mirror.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/10/09/as-inflation-rages-in-iran-bitcoin-software-not-available/

What stops them from downloading just like anybody else?

Tor does work in Iran, it's just more complicated and the Tor Project have had to be increasingly clever to "route around the damage":