Iran has one of the strangest crypto policies on Earth: it lets you mine Bitcoin but bans you from buying it with your own money. By December 2025, the rules have gotten even tighter. If you’re an Iranian citizen trying to protect your savings from the collapsing rial, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. The government wants you to use crypto to bypass sanctions-but only if they control every step of the way.
Why Iran Banned Crypto Payments in the First Place
The Iranian rial has lost more than 90% of its value since 2018. Hyperinflation is real. People can’t buy bread with the same amount of cash they used to. So, they turned to crypto. Not for speculation-because they had no choice. USDT (Tether) became the unofficial currency. It was stable. It was accessible. It kept people’s savings from vanishing overnight. The Central Bank of Iran saw this as a threat. When people use crypto to avoid the rial, they’re rejecting the state’s control over money. That’s dangerous for a government already under international sanctions. So in late 2024, they shut down all crypto-to-rial payment gateways. No more buying Bitcoin with rials through local apps. No more cashing out crypto into bank accounts. The goal? Stop capital flight. Stop the rial from falling faster.The $5,000 Stablecoin Cap: A Lifeline with Strings Attached
On September 27, 2025, just hours before new UN sanctions kicked in, Iran dropped its biggest move yet: stablecoin limits. Every Iranian citizen can now only buy up to $5,000 worth of stablecoins like USDT or DAI per year. And you can’t hold more than $10,000 total. If you had $15,000 in USDT? You had one month to sell the extra $5,000-or risk fines, account freezes, or worse. This isn’t about stopping crypto. It’s about controlling it. The government still wants Iranians to use stablecoins to trade internationally, especially for essential goods like medicine and food. But they don’t want people hoarding them. They don’t want wealth leaving the country. So they capped it. Tight. And it’s working-sort of. People are scrambling. Some are converting their USDT to DAI on the Polygon network, which is cheaper and harder for foreign entities like Tether to track. Others are using peer-to-peer trades through Telegram channels. The market adapts. The rules don’t.Advertising Is Now Illegal-Even Online
In February 2025, Iran went further. They banned all cryptocurrency advertising. No more YouTube videos saying “Buy Bitcoin with rials.” No more billboards for Nobitex or other exchanges. No more influencers pushing crypto as a way to save money. Even Iranian companies promoting crypto outside Iran got slapped with restrictions. This is rare. No other country has gone this far. Russia allows crypto ads. Turkey lets influencers promote it. Iran? They treat it like a dangerous drug. Why? Because every ad is a reminder: the rial is broken. And the government can’t fix it.
They’re Taxing Crypto Now-Yes, Really
In August 2025, Iran passed its first crypto tax law: the Law on Taxation of Speculation and Profiteering. It treats crypto gains like gold, real estate, or foreign currency trades. If you bought USDT for $1 and sold it for $1.10, you owe tax on the $0.10 profit. It’s not enforced yet. The government is phasing it in slowly. But the message is clear: crypto isn’t a loophole. It’s an asset. And the state wants its cut. This isn’t regulation for safety-it’s regulation for revenue.What About Mining? Why Is That Still Allowed?
Here’s the twist: Iran is one of the top five Bitcoin mining countries in the world. They have cheap electricity, a lot of it, and a government that doesn’t care how much power miners use. In fact, they encourage it. Why? Because mining brings in hard currency. Miners sell Bitcoin abroad, get paid in dollars, and send the money back to Iran through unofficial channels. The government doesn’t tax mining income directly-but it benefits from the dollars flowing in. It’s a quiet subsidy. The state gets revenue. The miners get cheap power. Everyone wins-except the national grid, which is barely holding up.Why Tether Frozen $100 Million in Iranian Wallets
On July 2, 2025, Tether froze 42 Iranian-linked crypto addresses. Over half of them were tied to Nobitex, Iran’s biggest exchange. Some wallets showed links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-a group under U.S. and EU sanctions. Tether didn’t say why they did it. But the timing was clear: after years of ignoring Iranian activity, they finally acted. The freeze hit hard. Thousands of users lost access to their USDT. Panic spread. That’s when the government stepped in-not to help, but to redirect. They pushed people to switch from USDT to DAI. Why? Because DAI runs on Polygon, a network Tether can’t easily freeze. It’s decentralized. It’s faster. It’s harder to track. Iranians didn’t wait for permission. They moved on their own.
Comments
19 Comments
Doreen Ochodo
People are just trying to eat. No one's here for the drama. Crypto isn't a choice-it's a lifeline.
Yzak victor
I can't believe they're taxing crypto gains. Like, you're already paying for bread with half your paycheck. Now you owe the state for surviving?
Holly Cute
This whole thing is a classic authoritarian playbook-ban the tool, control the narrative, then pretend you're helping. They're not stopping capital flight-they're just making it harder for the poor to escape while letting the IRGC keep mining and laundering. And don't even get me started on Tether freezing wallets like it's a public service. 🤦‍♀️
Tisha Berg
It's sad but true. When your currency is worthless, you use what works. No judgment. Just survival.
Billye Nipper
I just... I can't believe how brave these people are. They're not gambling. They're not speculating. They're just trying to keep their kids fed. And the government? They're taxing their hope. đź’”
Roseline Stephen
The digital rial is just a distraction. It doesn't solve anything. It's like giving someone a plastic spoon when they're starving.
Jon Visotzky
Mining is allowed because it brings dollars in. The state doesn't care if people can't buy bread as long as they're exporting crypto. Classic
Isha Kaur
I think what's happening in Iran is a microcosm of what's coming everywhere. When trust in institutions collapses, people turn to decentralized systems. It's not about Bitcoin or DAI-it's about autonomy. The government knows this. That's why they're so terrified. They can't control what they can't see. And that's why they're trying to force people into the digital rial. But trust isn't something you can legislate. It's earned. And they've burned every last bit of it.
Glenn Jones
OMG this is the WORST. I mean like... who even thinks this up?? Like banning ads?? Like it's not enough that your currency is trash, now you can't even TELL people about crypto?? And Tether freezing wallets?? Bro that's not regulation that's terrorism. And the IRGC?? I bet they're the ones cashing out the mining profits while regular people get fined for holding $10k. This is not a government. It's a mafia with a flag. #IranCrisis #CryptoIsFreedom
Tara Marshall
DAI on Polygon is the smart move. Less centralized, harder to freeze. People are adapting faster than the regulators.
Joe West
Honestly, this is the most honest crypto policy I've ever seen. They're not pretending to protect people. They're just trying to survive too. The real villain is inflation.
Richard T
The $5k cap feels like a middle finger to anyone trying to save. You can't buy a decent phone with that. But hey, at least they're not banning mining. That's something.
jonathan dunlow
Look, I get why the government is scared. The rial is collapsing. People are fleeing. But instead of fixing the economy, they're trying to control the escape route. That’s like putting a lock on the lifeboat while the ship sinks. And now they want to tax the last thing keeping people from starving? That’s not policy. That’s cruelty dressed up as law. I don’t care what side you’re on-this is a humanitarian disaster. The people aren’t the enemy. The system is.
Mariam Almatrook
It is my profound and unequivocal conviction that the Iranian state's regulatory framework, while ostensibly designed to preserve monetary sovereignty, in fact constitutes a grotesque violation of individual economic liberty, wherein the imposition of arbitrary stablecoin thresholds, coupled with the punitive taxation of speculative gains, evidences a totalitarian impulse that is both philosophically indefensible and economically self-defeating. The populace, in their desperate quest for financial dignity, are not criminals-they are victims of a derelict, anachronistic apparatus that mistakes control for stability. One must ask: if the rial is so fragile, why not reform it? Instead, they criminalize resilience.
Chris Mitchell
They don’t ban crypto because they hate it. They ban it because they fear what it represents: freedom without permission.
rita linda
This is why the West should never legitimize crypto. It's a tool for sanctioned regimes to bypass our sanctions. Now they're mining, hoarding, and using it to fund terror. And you people are acting like it's some kind of Robin Hood thing. Wake up.
nicholas forbes
I don't agree with the caps, but I get why they did it. If you let people move money out freely, the whole economy collapses. It's a brutal trade-off.
Regina Jestrow
I just watched a video of a woman in Tehran buying medicine with USDT. She was crying. Not because she was rich. Because she was alive. That’s the whole story right there.
Martin Hansen
Let me get this straight-you're defending people who use crypto to avoid paying taxes and circumvent sanctions? Wow. So the solution to a broken economy is to let people play digital poker with their savings? You're not a humanitarian. You're an enabler of chaos.
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