Bitcoin Forum

Iran Changes Law to Use Bitcoin For Imports
https://www.trustnodes.com/2020/10/29/iran-changes-law-to-use-bitcoin-for-imports

"Iran has become the first country in the world to use cryptocurrencies at a state level for value exchange.

The Iranian Cabinet has amended legislation to redirect cryptos into the Central Bank of Iran’s funding mechanisms for imports, according to a Saturday report by the official IRNA news agency.

“The miners are supposed to supply the original cryptocurrency directly and within the authorized limit to the channels introduced by the CBI,” said the report by CBI and the Ministry of Energy.
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The USA is stepping on its own rake.
Thanks to their policy, many countries will soon switch to mutual settlements through bitcoins :)

I am not a fan of the Iranian government (or of any other government). Despite that, this is very significant news.

You can be absolutely sure that, in reality, the Iranian government have been doing this for quite some time already. There's no way they would make such an announcement without becoming au fait with the system, and develop their own system around it to stop government employees from pocketing BTC for themselves (or at least not the "wrong" government figures, lol :D)

Clearly, trade between Iran and other embattled oil-based regimes (Venezuela, Nigeria, Russia etc) will ensue. The real joke is that the US will try (at least a couple times) to sanction the trading partner, and it will not make the slightest difference.

And if other states take the opportunity to sell off USD denominated bonds (China particularly), any attempt at using military power to comply cannot be sustained.

tl;dr: Checkmate in 5 moves or less.

I am not sure what kind of experiment they are doing since 2018 but use of crypto for imports in collaboration with the miners is just indigestible to me?

The article doesn’t elaborates much about the process except the relationship between limits of usage based on subsidised energy consumption.

Only one conclusion here is: They will not go for full fledge use of mining since for the operations of import which is 24*7 activity and Iranian being small country may not be able to supply that kinda electricity for this operation alone.

Can someone redirect to elaborative article associated with this? It would be interesting to see how exactly this import gonna work in “real time”.?

I cannot disclose the source but I can confirm you they are exploring this since 2018. The very first use case for them was about tuition fees. Two universities were involved if recall it correctly. It's been a while I don't get any news by my Iranian friend but I guess I should congratulate him.

I think the most important thing is to take the first step.

It says here that the cost of electricity in Iran is $ 0.006 per kilowatt-hour.

https://bitnovosti.com/2018/12/13/nizkie-tarify-na-elektroenergiyu-v-irane-privlekayut-majnerov-i-kriptoinvestorov/
Iran has huge energy resources, and if they launch their mining program, then we will get a new leader.

I'm glad they decided to turn to Bitcoin rather than create their own centralised regulated cryptocurrency. The latter was already attempted in Venezuela, and it did not go well with their coin becoming a joke. Bitcoin us a risky choice, so I'm interested in how it will work out. I hope this use case will be successful. In this case, Bitcoin is likely to be taken more seriously. But I would be more happy if a more open-minded democratic country would try it.

This seems to be the original source, but you'll have to translate it:

https://www.isna.ir/news/99080301359/%DB%8C%DA%A9-%D8%AA%D8%B5%D9%85%DB%8C%D9%85-%D8%AC%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%AF-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AE%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AC-%D8%B1%D9%85%D8%B2-%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B2

There are Arabic characters in the link so I'm not sure if it will work for everyone properly.

Either way, from my understanding, they'll be subsidizing electricity for the miners, and how much the miners are mandated to sell depends on how much electricity they received. To put it simply, they're paying miners with electricity as part of an actual national policy.

Venezuela has allegedly also been doing this for quite some time now although not at state level and without a statutory law in place. Iran are taking a bold step and this could present another use case for Bitcoin, countries battling under sanctions placed on them by sovereign states like the U.S can use Bitcoin as a means to evade such "intensity pressure".

This is a very significant news in my opinion, Bitcoin being involved in global trade pushes adoption and popularity, it could however have its bad effects as some governments attempt to impose regulatory laws to prevent its usage.

I found this a bit explanatory - https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/10/24/637130/Iran-digital-currency-cryptocurrencies-imports-CBI
And here is a personal take on the matter from Marty Bent, although it focuses more on the implications than the process - https://tftc.io/martys-bent/issue-856/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Iran is trying different methods to break the embargo. In my opinion, using Bitcoin like this way can affect Bitcoin badly. We can even see governments start banning Bitcoin. I hope we don't see this kind of things happen.

I was expecting this from a long time, bitcoin is all about freedom and these countries which are restricted by other countries in terms of trade and commerce will be making use of this situation, i am expecting China, Russia and North Korea using it to overcome the restrictions imposed upon them but Iran becoming the first nation to announce that ;) .

This is definitely first as a government is directly involving in purchasing the coins directly from the miners.

It is definitely a risky choice considering that the volatility of Bitcoin is swaying in unexpected ways, I do not think that they have thought this through. This is something new though, and hopefully if this breaks through and other country see that it works, hopefully they will follow the footsteps. Most democratic country will not be open to this despite being democratic, in my country, they do not care about this kind of thing. They worry more about losing their power over the masses, I am speaking only about my country and I do not know if other democratic country considered the potential of bitcoin.
The scary thing about this is that Iran might continue their nuclear program that the US has been preventing because they were tagged by US government as rogue nation. I think the wounds of Soleimani's death is still fresh.

I see this same outcome. The US has crippled economies in places such as Cuba and Venezuela and cryptocurrency is the most obvious way to bypass those sanctions. As America loses more influence more nations will find it easier to circumvent restrictions using Bitcoin and other decentralized methods where they are not able to impose their will.

To me it looks like the Iranian regime is grasping at straws. Using Bitcoin won't allow them to circumvent sanctions, which seems to be their goal, because the point of sanctions is to prevent your own companies and companies of your allies from trading with the target of sanctions. Western companies that would try to deal with Iran through Bitcoin would have to somehow explain to auditors where do bitcoins go/come from, so it just becomes a question of money laundering, and I seriously doubt that many would want to risk doing that. And as for trading between Iran and other rogue nations - who cares, sanctions or not, they were always be able to do that. Bitcoin brings nothing new here.

Dollar has been under a lot of pressure to stop being the main currency in the intermediation of international transactions. There is a good war  between countries like RUssia, USA, China, Europe. The problem is that in general the dispute is between dollars and other state currencies. Bitcoin is certainly an excellent option for those who do not have such a strong national currency and do not want to use the dollar. Bitcoin is freedom.

Bitcoin simply found its way into another inefficient market, with the inefficiency caused by U.S. sanctions, to make it more efficient, and more workable. Like the dark markets. 8)

North Korea next.

This may sound stupid though I believe this news might spark serious geopolitical consequences. Iran and N. Korea embracing bitcoin for good might make uncle Sam definitely crazy. I am only concerned about any possible retaliation, but this is a clear win for bitcoin.

Bitcoin is definetly getting better and better by the day, i have noticed a very huge increase in the number of bitcoin users. it will keep on growing more and more even though i had been here for a while and I am really glad about that there seems to be more people who will be looking forward to getting their hands on bitcoin soon enough. Pretty soon all banks will accept bitcoin a s a digital currency or they will come up with their own digital currency. I see myself using bitcoin for as long as I can. The bitcoin mining business and blockchain are definitely worth the time.

Sanctions and embargoes placed on Iran by some world powers has battered Iranian economy, in bid to reposition it they resorted to Bitcoin for import this is a welcome development at least decentralized feature of Bitcoin can't be manipulated by the world power to punish Iranian, this singular act of adoption of Bitcoin for import will be a sign of relief to them thus a plus for the growth and development of Bitcoin.

How can you sure about this? bitcoin is not even getting bounded with any regulation, especially from US. All entities are able using bitcoin for various things. as long as it will not be related to criminal activity and it will not bring bad impacts for bitcoin.

The only possible thing if we will see US will put more strict regulation for bitcoin but i think this will not happen shortly. The governments have started to change their mind again. More major companies have bought bitcoin to be their portfolios and that's proven bitcoin needs the time to prove the reliability of bitcoin itself especially for the countries.  

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Bitcoin is the only way for iran to avoid the sanction and there's no other way than this. I hope that Iranians will not be banned again to trade bitcoin too.

I am happy iran has import bitcoin by law.it is must to increase their revenue to see the situation now.because iran government is face banning trade on international leval.so l think it'll be become profitable for country.

This might be fake news,but if this is true,I'm not an optimist for the future of crypto.
If Iran tries to use a cryptocurrency to avoid the US sanctions,the US will most likely ban that cryptocurrency.The US government doesn't care about the crypto industry and will not hesitate to conduct such ban,only for the sake of damaging the economy of Iran.
On the other hand,if Biden wins the elections,he might try to continue Obama's policy and improve the relationships between the two countries.

North Korea has been in crypto-business for a long time already full speed. It's just not in the media news.

Now that Iran legalized and adopted bitcoin on their country and makes it an import way then it will surely help Iran to improve especially on the part of financial aspect. If all other countries manage to do something like this, it will be a good thing because the mass adoption will surely occur earlier than what we are expecting. I hope that the government of other countries accept this so that they may also get a lot of benefits with it for both government and their people.

It's not stupid. Satoshi knew that that possibilty might come that's why he went to great lengths to hide his real identity. He knew he could be murdered for inventing Bitcoin.


https://twitter.com/bitcoinmagazine/status/1197161029832265729

It doesn't have to be. Bitcoin is censorship-resistant.

Plus obviously Iran is only trying to use Bitcoin to go around U.S sanctions. Iranians can use it for the same purpose too. To go around Iranian laws.

Yeah, that is very correct. When Iranians learn how to use crypto, they know what they will do to go around their laws.  ;D At least, their government will learn the benefits of bitcoin or crypto, and then with that knowledge, they may be more accepting when it comes to laws and regulations towards crypto. This is will actually contribute to the adoption of crypto in their country.

Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin for humans.

However, people have not learned how to use Bitcoin to buy goods, works and services. Bitcoin is more used for financial speculation. This is not what Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to see.

In the future, the main holders of Bitcoin will not be individual individuals, but states and large corporations.

Bitcoin is convenient for more than just getting around sanctions.  Bitcoin can be used as reserves for central banks.  It's more functional than storing gold.

Iran is the first state to take an interest in Bitcoin.  Other countries will follow his example.

This is sneaky and good for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.  Would this mean that importers will have to buy BTC in order to get oil from them?

I wouldn't expect other countries to follow IRAN but there will be developments with blockchain. I think most countries will still follow what China had done. Australia is starting to look into CBDC using ETH network.

For Iran, this is a very important step as I believe it can provide some financial independence for the citizens of Iran.

OR sanctioned-Iran could use their oil and natural gas to generate electricity to use to mine Bitcoin, and maybe other POW cryptocurrencies. That could be another go around of U.S. Sanctions.

Iran is trying a good breakthrough if it allows using bitcoin and altcoin as a legal transaction tool, I think it makes transactions easier if you use bitcoin or altcoin as a means of exchange. This actually makes it easier for investors to make transactions because the sending process using bitcoin is much more effective than using fiat. So far, many export and import transactions using the dollar currency do not actually benefit from one another between investors and consumers. If Iran has the courage to apply bitcoin and altcoin as a legal transaction tool, other countries must also use bitcoin to make transactions more efficient.

there's no reason why Iran needs to import so much, they've been forced to revert to a ~99% internal economy anyway (i.e. a "war economy"). That means they can simply produce as much BTC as they need for minimal imports, and not sell _any_ oil or gas (the market prices of which are being pushed down right now due to the Saudis dumping oil in the marketplace).

Strategically, holding oil/gas while prices are low and producing BTC while prices are high (and in a bull market) makes alot of sense

Through the genius of HashCash/POW as implemented by Satoshi, Iran can use their oil and natural gas, assets that are dropping in value, to generate the electricity required to "convert" into an "asset" that's rising in value, Bitcoin. 8)

I don't think United stated will take such a huge move and Ban Bitcoin for this. and I don't think US govt has such ability to ban Bitcoin. Bitcoin cannot be controlled by govt. and if they ban it in their country that doesn't effect Bitcoin at all. but millions of Bitcoin users from US will be effected for sure. and I don't think those people will accept this and let the govt put ban on bitcoin. Iran's using Bitcoin will move iran to another level. their credibilty will surely increase maybe opportunities for new blockchain startups to start from Iran will open and iran will see a rise of bitcoin funding and investment.