The Social Life of Cryptocurrencies in Sanctioned Iran
Cryptocurrency trading is usually associated with tech bros and libertarians in the Global North. In Iran, it looks different. Moslem Ghomashlouyan's project traces how, under conditions of economic and financial exclusion, cryptocurrencies have become a tool of sustaining livelihoods and securing futures for cross-class segments of the population.
Since 2011, intensified US-led financial sanctions have repeatedly driven the country's currency, the rial, to record lows against the US dollar, eroding its role as a store of value. Faced with this economic pressure, Iranians across social classes have turned to cryptocurrency trading, among other strategies, to save, move capital, and mitigate the effects of currency instability amid economic and financial exclusion and restricted access to hard currencies. For many young people, it has also become a form of "leapfrogging"—bypassing conventional paths to social mobility, such as higher education, steady employment, or even stock market speculation.
During his fellowship at the Collegium, Moslem will use digital ethnography among cryptocurrency traders in Iran and engage with the online platforms where such trading is discussed, to tell a different story: one of how cryptocurrencies have given many Iranians access to currencies other than the rial. This includes people from modest socioeconomic backgrounds and women, both largely excluded from the mainstream imaginary about who cryptocurrency traders are.
About the image: This painting depicts a British naval blockade, a direct historical ancestor of today's economic sanctions. The 20th century saw the economic weapon of sanctions born from this same spirit of blockade, codified in Article 16 of the Covenant of the League of Nations as its main disciplinary tool, following the significant role blockades had played in the outcome of the First World War. Where naval blockades once physically cut off ports, modern sanctions achieve a similar aim by excluding targeted states from international banking and trade—the very pressures Moslem's project traces in the lives of ordinary Iranians today.