Iran's crisis sheds light on the regime's shadow cryptocurrency economy, valued at $7.8 billion.

The government relies on this cryptocurrency infrastructure for international trade, while ordinary Iranians use it as a financial lifeline during protests and crises.
Iran has built a multi-billion dollar parallel economy using state-supported Bitcoin mining and stablecoins to bypass the US dollar, heavily driven by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The government depends on this cryptocurrency infrastructure for international trade, while ordinary Iranians use it as a financial lifeline during protests and economic crises.
Recent military strikes threaten Iran's fragile power grid, which is essential for sustaining energy-intensive mining operations that keep this financial channel running.

The new American and Israeli strikes on Iran have once again drawn attention to a financial network built by Tehran alongside its strained banking system: rapidly growing Bitcoin mining and stablecoin economy.

Iran legalized digital currency mining in 2019, allowing licensed operators to use subsidized electricity to sell mined Bitcoin to the Central Bank. Bitcoin has become a tool for paying for imports and settling trade outside the dollar system, albeit indirectly.