Bitcoin Forum

I don't know where to post this question, and may be the Discussion is the best place for it.

The news has spread the rumors that the Iran people are trying to buy food and other goods by paying Bitcoin, since the U.S. embargoed Iran and frozen the bank account and wiring methods of Iran. I have a friend are doing regular business with Iran customers, and the Iran customers have to wire their money to Dubai first and then wire it to China. The fee is very expensive and my friend has to wait the money for a long time. My friend want to persuade the Iran customers to pay with Bitcoin. Then here is the question:

How Iran people can get some bitcoin if he cannot mine it?

That's indeed a interesting question. I can't think of a solution, that wouldn't make this even more complicated.

I'm interested to see some proposals.


Oh, maybe ripple could be a possibility?

Q: Who in his right mind would sell a nontrivial amount of Bitcoin for Iranian currency.
A: No one.

Sorry, but tough titty. Maybe it is not that hopeless if they have something of value like gold, oil etc and can actually deliver it. Even then all those embargoes do not help much. It sucks to be on the receiving end of modern "cold warfare" AKA "currency wars".

Nevertheless, let's assume they can set up some kind of local exchange trading bitcoins for whatever of value they may have at whatever the market sez it worth. Here you go, they have breached the blockade at least to some degree and Bitcoin immediately classified by some as "enemy of the state" and "treasonous financial instrument", lol,  and by some as a "strategic resource".

We have discussed this issue before and yes, sure, it is an issue. If there are 0Ƀ in Iran, you will not bootstrap a 10Ƀ economy there but if people can use bitcoins in Iran, they will find ways to get them in.

There are many Iranians that receive support from their families abroad and bitcoin is the cheapest way not only to pay you while in Iran but also to send value to somebody in Iran from the US for example.

It's a hen-egg problem. Right now very few people see value in Bitcoin in Iran, so they ask their relatives to send USD via Dubai or whatever at a 40% loss. If they find out they can sell bitcoins in Iran for 10% commission, they will change their mind, so please offer stuff to Iranians (if you know you can deliver) and let people know. Money will find it's way.

Remittances are how you bootstrap bitcoin in a place like Iran. Iranians can have their relatives who live abroad send them bitcoins and those bitcoins can be traded internally to the people who want to use them to pay for imports.

A: A person visiting Iran  and / or wishing to purchase goods in Iran for export in order to obtain Iranian rials at a significant discount on the un-official or black market. It is the same phenomenon that is happening in Argentina with the "blue rate" and happens everywhere where there is a falling currency and strict exchange controls. There is an official rate and an un-official or black market rate with the latter being a lot more favorable to a visitor or for someone wishing to purchase goods in Iran for export.

https://localbitcoins.com/country/IR

You can sell bitcoins to them and cash it in Dubai...

While true, it doesnt refute the point. Iranians want out of the Rial too. They already try to hoard or acquire dollars as they are in high demand there.  Bitcoin could (and to a tiny extend, does) provide the same purpose. To get bitcoins, its the same problem as to get dollars, they need to sell goods and services for bitcoin. Iran is not a third world country (yet), it has a fairly sizable economy.


Thats more than a stretch. AFAIK, its not illegal to do business with Iranians, its only that Iranian banks have been cut off the Swift network, making it very hard to do so in reality. I think we all know of a viable alternative to that, dont we?

They can buy bitcoins from Dubai
https://localbitcoins.com/country/AE

How would a switch to bitcoin look like?

Version 1 (unlikely): The government hoards a million Bitcoins and then publicly announces to give 0.01 micro BTC (or so) for every IRR which would look like a big scam:
Currently:
20,000IRR = 1USD = 0.05BTC
1IRR = 2.5uBTC
but they also announce to sell their oil for bitcoin which would get the exchange rate to x250 instantly.
Other powers (USA) would bomb Iran back to the stone age because they find clear evidence of WMD.
Bitcoin wins.

Version 2 (likely): Under the radar remittance payments provide an increasing in-flow of bitcoins and a local market like localbitcoins evolves to arbitrate between those needing store of value and those needing legal tender.

Iran evades sanctions by trading oil for gold in Turkey then smuggling it to places like Dubai. No one wants Iranian Rial, but if they could pay in gold then I'm sure they could find someone to sell them bitcoins.

Sell oil for Bitcoins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse)

Is it possible to send things out of Iran? Or are even letters/packages very tightly controlled?
Surely there must be some products (even if just souvenirs) in country with such rich history that would sell without problems on the Internet? (for bitcoins)?

I suppose there are currently 3 ways bitcoins can go to Iran.

1. Family in a different country wants to support their Iran relatives... so they might send them bitcoins
2. Someone in iran sees a market for bitcoins and gets them in somehow and starts selling them locally on localbitcoins
3. relatives who received bitcoins from family outside country trades them to someone else for something else


right?

Iran is already trading with Gold on the national level. (mainly with Turkey I believe)

Iranians should run VPN services for Bitcoins, so we can all get Iranian IP addresses to run Bitcoin nodes on.
Then the Iranian Bitcoin scene will look much bigger than it is - and some Journalist will hype it.. and then..    I dunno.. we all get thrown in jail or something.

There are iranian proxies, if you are interested to see how the internet looks from within the embargoed mullah state. Most Iranians surf on external proxies to precisely not see this shit.

I would get an Iranian VPN as long as I could connect to a second vpn through the Iranian one to avoid the censorship.  I would trust the Iranian VPN provider to not hand over my data to the US government more than anyone else.

A2: Anybody who was in Iran and needed the Dinars to spend on goods and services there. 

That's an aspect I hadn't considered.
In all seriousness - selling of digital services seems the most viable way for Iranians to earn BTC at this point. 
I imagine it'd be hard to get FPGA or ASIC mining gear into Iran... and if there are any GPU miners there, they're surely not going to get much from now on anyway.

How about they sell persian rugs for bitcoins.

I think that we should lobby for Bitinstant to get cash deposits in Iran.

A new Iranian Bitcoin website has been established which is include WIKI and Forum both .

here is the address:  http://poolfa.com/blog

I think it's going to grow there too :D

As I heard they fix the transaction for Iran's currency too

As soon as an Iranian VPN accepts bitcoin, I'm signing up.

They got wiki here:

http://poolfa.com/wiki/

Why they don't go into bitcoin.it wiki !?

I think the bigger question is how to tell Americans to accept US dollars cash in an envelope? Iran is well served by the Hawala network. They take rials from your doorstep and deliver cash to whomever you want anywhere in the world.

And FYI Iranian rials are widely used in Afghanistan and for cross border trade in Pakistan. So you guys are completely wrong that no one accepts Iranian currency.

Ya... no. They are in this for $$$$$, not for social/politcal causes.

I also would buy Iranian VPN for bitcoins straight away.

Anyway Bitcoins would not hurt Iranian people or government. If they are serious about breaking the western world banking scam, they will need to officially recognize Bitcoin as a valid alternative money to Rial and precious metals. They must look at how western banksters are feeling uneasy about Bitcoin, especially USA. But many computer guys don't understand and grossly misunderstand what Bitcoin is and how it functions, could decision makers in IR leadership understand Bitcoin?

P.S. USA will not bomb Iran because of BTC or any other reason. Iran have more powerful military than Iraq, Afganistan and Libya had together. It would be like crazy attack upon Russia or India (except the nukes). And the precious cancerous tumor occupying Palestine will perish as a result. And oil will stop coming from that region for years. And there would be tens of thousands new al-qaeda members as a result of this injustice.

Just tell them this.

شما باید Bitcoin اخبار به خرید محصولات و مسیر ما آنها را از طریق عربستان سعودی است.

But in all seriousness,  the only solution is to network.

Your customers would have to have access to local forums, so they can find people  that have bitcoins for sale.
There are many people bypassing the system through their arab neighbours as long as they have opened up the channels to stream in and out currency then it is only a matter of convincing them to begin exchanging bitcoins, it is not an easy answer though, it is a hard one, considering that sending payments inside the country is a problem.

You could always open up a store that accepts bitcoins to ship to countries that have no barriers to exchange with you; You provide a software/goods/services online and ship them, then you can exchange locally with people who want bitcoins, having two businesses is better than just one.

Excellent topic.
If bitcoin made it there, then that would seem to prove bitcoins value  ;)

and get the lethal injection for "aiding the enemy"  :P

I hope they got more visitors , because no one knows about BTC in such countries. '

Poolfa Farsi WIKI is the huge project and it's much appreciated :)

Maybe Mtgox can consider another exchange BTC/Barrels of Oil, I think this will be more interesting for Iranians and Oil producing countries :)

That's not an issue, all of them are using VPN already , otherwise can't open anything :D

I'm looking to find a way to support them get popular .

and how exactly will 1 send the barrels to mtgox?

Dude, your very own aircraft carrier. What's not to like?

Interest in bitcoin on google trend spiked this week.

Yep... I noticed it personally

1. Exchange their local currency for a currency you can purchase bitcoin with.
2. Trade goods or services for bitcoin
3. trade other monetary substances for bitcoin.  People are saying gold and silver but it could be anything you can sell like cars, books, golf clubs etc.