Cryptocurrency has really changed the dynamics in Iran, especially during COVID-19. The mishandling of the Iranian government had been always detrimental to the Iranian economy, but things have become far worse under sanctions imposed by the United States and COVID-19. It has brought a lot of people towards crypto because it seems an attractive avenue in an unstable economy and hyperinflated currency.
In 2010 1$ was around 10000 Iranian Rial, today at the time of writing 1$ is 420000 Iranian Rial (numbers rounded). If you had your money in the bank, that was like your money was divided by 42. I was 18 when it was 2010 and I had a minimum wage job. I could easily buy 60$ games online and play them and pay for everything else. Now if I had the same job, 60$ would be my entire wage. The difference is astronomical. We are barely ahead of Venezuela economically, but I think people feel it more because not long ago the economy was relatively "fine". But this also highlights Iran's unique position to utilize cryptocurrency, because while the economy is suffering, there is still infrastructure in place to invest in cryptocurrency.
One could invest in gold or property and they would be relatively safe, or at least much safer than putting their money in banks. But this is not really an option for most people as it requires significant level of initial capital. A lot of people suffered due to the inflation which was exacerbated by sanctions and COVID-19. I got into cryptocurrency in the early days of COVID-19 because I lost my job. I was making 110$ per month from my job, but I had to stop working. After doing some research, I invested little savings I had in some GPUs to start mining. I started making 160$ a month from mining, which was already more than my previous job, but I had to invest some money beforehand, so it would be a couple of months before I would see profits. In the meantime I found another job which increased my total monthly income to 300$.
Since crypto doesn't have the barrier of entry like property and gold and I could begin investing without needing a large initial capital, I started spending less and less on things I didn't really need. Smoking, drinking, ordering food all the time, excessive gaming, shopping etc. I quit most of these habits and started cooking more. This allowed me to set aside 1$ a day on average for investment. Sometimes I would literally set some money aside and sometimes I would simply hold some of mined ETH instead of selling it. So, on average I started investing around 30$ in various coins every month. 30$ is nothing in terms of international value, but its a decent bit of money in a hyperinflated economy. Crypto prices have generally gone up in long term since 2019 and I've basically tripled my overall investments since then. It didn't make me rich or anything, but I have more savings than I ever did in my life.
One of crypto's main benefits is its accessibility. There are very few investment avenues for someone like me who does not have large initial capital and cannot participate in western markets due to sanctions. I'm not even talking about the mining, which has been decent as well. But that's the same for everyone else in the world provided their electricity price is cheap. But at this point in my life, cryptocurrency is the only international investment I can participate in and I'm grateful for it. Its very empowering to be able to do this when you have a government like mine and half the world is trying to sanction your economy.
