.png)
German (DE) 
English (US) 
Spanish (ES) 
French (FR) 
Hindi (IN) 
Italian (IT) 
Russian (RU) Sun, Sep 14, 2025, 9:44 AM 2 min read
When Australian travel vlogger Luke Damant landed in Tehran, the first shock wasn’t the culture or the food, it was money.
“When I arrived at the airport, there was a lot of scammers there trying to trick me because they were using the Google Exchange rate, which is a lot lower in comparison to the black market rate,” Damant recalled in a podcast with Harry Jaggard. “One US dollar equals about 1 million Iranian rial, so it is an extremely inflated currency, and if you get a hundred dollars exchange, you have a whole lot of cash.”
Iran’s rial has collapsed under decades of U.S. sanctions, which have blocked the country from global banking systems like SWIFT. Visa and Mastercard are banned.
“You can’t use any banks or ATMs there because of the sanctions. MasterCard and Visa, they’re banned from operating in the country, so you have to bring in US dollars or Euros, a whole WA of cash, and you have to go onto the street and get an exchange, which is a crazy experience,” Damant said.
Locals navigate the system with “toons,” a shorthand that removes zeros from the rial, making the already confusing cash exchanges even harder for outsiders. Foreign visitors like Damant must carry stacks of foreign currency, but locals have another workaround.
“Is it true that you can use crypto there?” one interviewer asked. “I think so. I think they take Bitcoin in some places,” Damant replied.
For Iranians, crypto isn’t just about speculation — it’s about bypassing a broken system. “If you’re only visiting for a week or two weeks as a foreigner, you have to bring in all the cash and get it exchanged on the street,” Damant said. For everyone else, Bitcoin is increasingly filling the gap sanctions created.
Sanctions by the U.S., especially via OFAC, block most Iranians from accessing global payment networks. Chainalysis reported $4.2 billion in crypto outflows from Iran in 2024, a 70% increase over 2023, much of it driven by people trying to get around frozen banking options.
With the rial in freefall, having lost about 90% of its value since the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear deal in 2018, digital assets have become a lifeline for citizens trying to preserve savings and move money out of the country.
This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Sep 14, 2025, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Comments