Bitcoin Forum

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/10/17/1247203/iran-running-out-of-physical-currency-satellite-broadcasts-dropped-in-europe

Shows bitcoin is going main stream...

To bad they cant download the software easily.

Agreed, I remember the news talking about how in other countries like Iraq and in Libya people were using small boats to get to Bahrain or other countries that would allow them to bank and use those funds.  Boats with people holding thousands and thousands of dollars worth of funds so people over there will do about anything to move and or secure their funds and bitcoin back then was just not an option like it is now. 
I think what would be of greater value to Iran and their folks is not tying to get them the software but to get to points of contact at neighboring counties to either setup regional bitcoin posts outside of the country or attempt to get in bitcoin cold wallet systems to do conversions in the country.  Now I know what I am saying is basically smuggling in a laptop with the software and either a sat or cell phone which could have some serious issues associated with it but I would bet that it would be safer then trying to download or setup something in the country on their controlled internet which probably would be like turning on a homing beacon.  I would guess that people who would turn to bitcoin for their funds would rather use it infrequently during this time and see it more of a way to save their funds so that once this ends they can recapture their funds and apply them to rebuilding their efforts. 

Just my two cents but I am very interested in the topic and would be very interested to see any more efforts applied to Iran with BitCoin.  It is an unfortunate experiment.

Bitcoin is open source so Iran could easily buy a vpn to another county, download the code and open up iranforge! Free software knows no boundaries or rules.

Except cryptography export laws?

It should be pretty easy to market to that market. They already use VPNs and tor so that getting the software should not be a problem, additionally they can use the web wallets. The biggest concern I see is technological illiteracy, it might be very hard for them to understand how bitcoin works.

Correct me if i am wrong, but the "exporting cryptography is illegal" thing is false today. It was true tons of years ago, but not now.

And yes, bitcoin is ideal for Iran. Just download a small software and ta-dah, you are connected to a world-wide, secure, fast and efficient payment/money/whatelse system  :)

And yes, i too think that iran people are mostly good guys, the government is epic fail, but you can't blame the whole population for the errors of the government!

All Iranians (is that the correct term?) I have ever met, where really smart and educated people, so I don't see a problem there.

... It could be of course that the smart people get the hell out of this country.

No, they really are decent people. They aren't the brutish, impoverished, savage brutes the international media portrays them to be; just people who want their own sovereignty.

Good luck shipping them directly to Iran without it being seized by customs. You would have to funnel them through Russia or China first.

Oh god, I am going to be so raped by Obama if I continue talking like this.

Casascius could open a branch in Iran...

I'm certain crypto export laws would be the last thing on their minds.

The latest release of MultiBit includes Persian (Farsi) translation.  The source is on GitHub.  I don't know if it that project is restricted from download from Iran:

Reach out for the white spots!
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=94805.msg1260199#msg1260199

MutiBit project:
 - http://multibit.org

If the government is banning printing of Iranian currency then the bitcoin network should help by banning the inclusion of Iranian transactions.

Q. How do you tell an Iranian bitcoin from a good one?

A. Iranian bitcoins can't build a working nuclear bomb.

Why?

1)No

2)The rest of the world has tons of nuclear bombs

I suppose it was a joke.

I can never tell. I took Swift's "A Modest Proposal" seriously.

this

Problem is: how could they buy bitcoins? With their funny money?
Maybe they could try to sell some oil for BTC.
Anyone on the BTC market for a tanker or two of oil?

In some ways Litecoin might be a more reasonable alternative for Iranians. At this point Iran can't buy the equipment with which to mine BTC in any significant volume, and individuals who do posses GPUS (and there are lots of gamers in Iran) don't have enough power to mine BTC either.

Seeing as Iranians would a) be most likely be wary of trading large amounts of Cash for Bitcoins that they can't make themselves, and b) who would trade Bitcoins for Iranian cash anyway, Litecoin might be a more reasonable alternative. The difficulty is still low enough that people can at least mine a FEW coins thus giving them a chance to develop a coin economy within their economic terrarium.

Nice solution, then the SS will show up at your door, and arrest you, hold you for months until they discover the coins you sent are not being used to support their nuclear plant.

Why buy bitcoins when you've got cheap electricity from the ground, and computers from China?

How to download: use vpn/tor, go on bitcoin website, clic download button. Done.  :)

More details plz

1.) they don't need to mine

2.) Iranian individuals have gold

Obama is terrible, look at the chilling effect. People are afraid to speak their minds in the US. As terrible at GWDummyBush was people were not fearful to speak freely back then.

http://coinworker.com/

design / coding for btc

"the government is epic fail" That's only what we know from the mass media, I'm not so sure that their Govt are so much of a failure.. IMO, this his what the 1%ers want us to beleive !

Anyone talked to actual iranian ?  Anyone have friend / relative in this country that they communicate with ?

I'm convinced that US and CAN Govt really are epic fail !  As not a mass media listener, I can't tell about what they want us to beleive.. Be carefull, dont take those TVs for truth teller, thoses TVs are mass-propaganda tool.. search the web, give it a try !  Google it !

Have anyone tried to contact President of Iran or Ministry of Security and Intelligence of Iran on this matter? Because without supreme approval of Iranian government Bitcoin will not function in Iran. Bitcoin protocol is neither obfuscated or encrypted on packet level and it is easily blocked on ISP level.

With government adopting BTC as a payment instrument alongside gold and euro is a great tool to damage USA dollar. Expect to bitcoins become outlawed in all zionist controlled states. But the Iran is known to reject or be overly suspicious about some new things, like wikileaks.

But it's obfuscated and encrypted on TOR and VPN  ;)

As for what DoomDumas  said, i think that iranian people are people like us but their government isn't exactly a good one

Tor does not work in Iran. VPN work only for "selected" people.

Iranian people are muslims. For atheist like me they are OK as long as they identify themselves for Aryans. Read history books about Hitler and Iran! But don't post your wrong opinion about Iranian government. Without revolutionary government Iran will be another puppet state to jew zionist conspiracy.

Tor does work in Iran, it's just more complicated and the Tor Project (https://www.torproject.org/) have had to be increasingly clever to "route around the damage":

https://metrics.torproject.org/bridge-users.png?start=2011-12-01&dpi=72&end=2012-12-01&country=ir (https://metrics.torproject.org/users.html?graph=bridge-users&start=2011-12-01&end=2012-12-01&country=ir&dpi=72#bridge-users)

What stops them from downloading just like anybody else?

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

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

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

Ente

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.

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

https://i.imgur.com/iOHEO.png

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

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

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

Does this forum have a facepalm smiley?

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

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

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

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/

@ 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

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.

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

With an accelerating inflation rate currently estimated at more than 196% (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/the-iran-hyperinflation-fact-sheet/), 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.

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

Awesome demonstration of the power of bitcoins.

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 ;)

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

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/

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

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.

hehe. There was some luck involved, but <1% combined fee sounds awesome ;)

All that's needed is a large mining operation in Iran.

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

afaik there are sanctions in effect since early this year:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_sanctions_against_Iran

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.

I see a post describing an exchange, Coinava, now in Iran:

 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=256445.0