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Woooow Thank you! It’s great to meet someone here who appreciates the Shahnameh.
Ferdowsi’s stories are deeply rooted in our culture, especially the themes of standing strong through difficult times. I hope to bring some of that perspective here—looking at markets and life through the lens of someone who lives in constant uncertainty. Happy to be here!
Mostly store of value, at least at first.
For many people here, the first problem they are trying to solve is currency debasement and loss of purchasing power. But once they spend more time around bitcoin, the censorship resistance side starts to matter more too, especially in a place where financial rules can shift very quickly.
Completely agree. That’s exactly how it feels here.
For some people, bitcoin can feel even more dependable than cash, USD, or gold—not because it’s perfect, but because self-custody gives them more direct control in uncertain situations.
When the future feels fragile, that control and privacy can matter more than people on the outside might expect.
Good question. The shadow definitely didn’t start with the recent hostilities.
Even in quieter periods, a baseline level of uncertainty has been there for years. It shows up in pretty normal decisions: people avoid long commitments, prefer liquidity, and try to keep at least part of their savings in something they can move or sell quickly.
I try not to frame it as day‑to‑day “threat headlines” driving behavior as much as the long-run expectation of shocks—sanctions, sudden FX moves, policy changes, or regional escalations. When you’ve lived through a few of those cycles, you start planning defensively by default.
That same instinct is part of why some people are now curious about bitcoin/crypto: not as ideology, but as another option for portability and value protection when the future feels fragile.
Thanks for the suggestion! I have a lot to share about the economic reality here and how it shapes people's behavior. I'll make sure to post my future thoughts in ~econ.
Yeah, that’s true. For quite a while, the internet was effectively cut off for a lot of people inside Iran. Thankfully, we’ve only been able to get back online for the past two or three days.
That said, I honestly don’t know for how long. Access is still uncertain, and it could be disrupted again at any moment.
To be honest, things are not good right now. Life under the shadow of war can never really be acceptable or something you can describe positively, especially when it is a war you never wanted, never asked for, and did not start, yet it is forced on you by a much stronger and more advanced country.
It becomes even harder when that country openly talks about destroying your homeland, breaking it apart, taking its resources, and even takes pride in doing so. At the same time, it feels like there is no real justice or law in the world. And even if such things are supposed to exist, people like Trump seem to care nothing about them and keep using lies to present their own crimes to the world in reverse.
There is honestly so much to say that I could write for hours about how difficult life has been in my country these days. But even then, I do not want to make you feel sad, even for a moment, by hearing too much of it.
From my own experience, when international internet access was effectively cut off in Iran, there was very little anyone could do online.
To give you a sense of it: I couldn’t reliably watch YouTube, and even sending a message on Telegram or WhatsApp was often impossible. So if basic internet use was barely working, using bitcoin — or acquiring sats — was even harder in practice.
Once connectivity is gone, wallets can’t communicate properly, exchanges are unreachable, and most people are simply stuck.
Machankura-style solutions are interesting, but in practice they’re not really viable here.
Most people don’t use USSD for anything beyond basic mobile operations, and Bitcoin over USSD is still too niche and unfamiliar. During internet shutdowns, people mostly fall back to cash because nothing else reliably works.
Inflation is still a constant background pressure. Everyone feels it, even when the official numbers look calmer.
The most common hedges for regular people are physical USD, gold coins, and in some cases small amounts of Bitcoin for those who are comfortable with self-custody. Real estate is a hedge too, but it’s far beyond what the average person can access anymore.