Sanctions are Economic Terrorism: Crypto in Iran
It has been reported lately in the news about how the country of Iran has been using bitcoin to get around sanctions imposed by the United States and how the population is using it as a hedge for inflation. To get a better understanding on the situation, I spoke to Salman Sadeghi (@salman_sadeghi), a Masters student at GCAS studying cryptoeconomics based in Iran. During the interview we discuss what is the experience on the ground for Iranians that are suffering under these sanctions, how he...
Top Keywords
No salient keywords identified yet for this episode.
Transcript
Hello, everyone. You're listening to the Blockchain Socialist Podcast. And for today's interview, I have Sallie Sadeghi. He is a master's researcher at GCAS, which is the Global Center for Advanced Studies. You guys may remember the university as being one of the only, cooperatively owned universities who I had a the opportunity to interview, Creston Davis, who is the founder of it. So Sally is a is a master's in in one of the programs in cryptoeconomics, and he's also based in Iran. He has a lot of very very interesting thoughts on cryptocurrency, and I'm really curious about learning about his experience, especially of living in Iran because, there's been a lot, of course, a lot of news around Iran and its relationship to, the mining of Bitcoin and the use of cryptocurrencies as it's under, some pretty, some pretty devastating economic sanctions. So hey, Sally. How are you doing?
It's nice to be here with you, the election socialist.
Yeah. Thanks for coming. So maybe to start off, you could give a bit of an introduction to yourself, your background, and how you got started at being a researcher at GCAS in cryptoeconomics.
Of course. This is, Salman. I am a researcher at the Global Center for Advanced Studies. About myself, my academic background all goes to the engineering majors. Actually, I studied mechanical engineering and finished with the master of science. But about the cryptocurrency, I got to know about Bitcoin, I think, back in 2013, when I was just starting my master program. But, it took me, I think, two or three years to fully get the idea and become a crypto enthusiast. After graduation, I started to work with Coinurant, which is an independent publication and a research center covering blockchain logics and cryptocurrency. It was a great experience for me as it's provided me with a a broad knowledge of, crypto, projects, which are existing in the market. It was in 2020 that, I found the GCAS. At that moment, I was searching for a university to study, academically cryptocurrency and the GCAS was among the rare and, you know, that, it appears beautiful to me from the very beginning. You know, the idea behind GCAS, it's a revolutionary, you know, which is a real practice of cryptoeconomics, I think. And, you see its amazing processors, the use of the crypto currency, its native crypto currency, I mean, the GCSE token to sustain the academic relation. I thought that something new can happen with this educational model. So, I applied for the GCSE, cryptoeconomics program. And now, I am here with you.
So in in you you said in 2013 is when you first found Bitcoin. And, I guess, what were your thoughts, in the beginning when you were first starting to get into into cryptocurrency?
You know, it was somehow funny because one of my friends came to me and, just tell me about, a hacking attack on his, company that, he used to work at the moment. And the hacker just asked for Bitcoin, you know, and he asked me, do you know what is Bitcoin? I need some Bitcoin to solve the problem. And yeah, at the first moment, I just thought that it is the money of, you know, hackers or, you know, white hatchers or, the dark stuff. But, as time passed and, I just we we stay more, interested in, Bitcoin. It was so good, you know, for a person who lives in Iran, with all those economic limitation, you know, at first, I thought that this is the currency of art, you know. This is the money of art. And, yes, this is the the other story. Satoshi's invention was so much great. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess is it yeah. The link between cryptocurrency and, the economic sanction sanctions was, like, pretty clear even though yeah, I guess the first time you came across it was because of, hacking attempts.
That's it. That was it. That's my story with Bitcoin. So you mentioned the the, American sanction, economic sanction. You want me to talk about
Yes. Yeah. Definitely. I I was gonna ask you next, like, what is it like at the moment in Iran, with these imperial economic sanctions that have been levied against the country by The US? How how has that sort of affected everyday life, for Iranians?
Still, you have the pandemic, econometricization, plus American sanction and mass corruption in a country like mine. So you see that it would not be easy, to leave this condition. And about the sanction, I think of them as an economic terrorism, you know, because at the end, these are masses, who really suffer from all these economic limitations, and not the government. They have the power to change money, you know? So, take for example, myself. It is not possible for me to work with international companies. I was about, to join the one of the most leading publication of the space. But because of my nationality, I miss, the position. So you see that the this is innocent people, who really suffer from, the economic sanction. And I believe that, it doesn't work. You can see similar cases throughout history. You see Iraq, you see Libya, you see North Korea. And I think it doesn't work and even it leads to a more totalitarian situation in the sanctioned countries. And I think this is the way that, the imperialism is exercised power. So
Yeah. So I think yeah. One of the things that I think people miss when they're talking about, you know, quote, totalitarian regimes in countries that have economic sanctions is, I mean, is the fact that they are under economic sanctions. So I think sometimes people in the West, people in The US, so, like, pro pro American pro Americans and and and pro Western, foreign, influence. They sort of forget that these countries are under economic sanctions. They're not allowed to take advantage of maybe the resources that they have and and, you know, do the thing that all our other countries are able to do and and trade their goods on the market. And because of that, that's something that's yeah. The average person suffers a whole lot more than does, you know, the president of of whatever country is being sanctioned. That's something that's, that's very, hugely missed. And so I guess going off of that, as you're aware, of course, that there's been a lot of reports that countries like Iran have been mining Bitcoin, in order to make money under these sanctions and potentially being used to facilitate trade with other sanctioned countries. So I'm I'm curious to hear what your thoughts on on the use of Bitcoin for for trade for getting around, these sanctions.
I think, it was the aim of Satoshi from the very beginning to remove intermediaries. So, sanctions are exactly the way that intermediaries exercise their power, regardless of the fact that it is for good or bad. So it would not be surprising to see countries under the pressure of American sanctions are using potentialities of cryptocurrencies in direct transfer of values. So, of course at this moment, the global cryptocurrency market, I think is not that much big to cover all the needs that a country like mine may have from international trade. But I think it can work in some extent. So if I can pay for a course, with Chifters, while I cannot pay with fiat, so why don't you use Chifters? And I think, yes, they are using the potentialities of cryptocurrencies.
You had some interesting thoughts, when we were speaking about when we were speaking before about Iran, specifically in terms of mining Bitcoin. You're saying that in Iran, in order to mine Bitcoin, you had to have you have to have a license to be able to do it. And recently, the government used sort of the, excuse of the energy grid going down as a reason to stop Bitcoin mining for, for sort of, like, these licensed Bitcoin miners. But, you claim that there's probably a high chance that the government is still mining Bitcoin anyways.
Yes. You're right. You know, they always put the blame on the wrong side. Based on my research and, at most, around 5% of, all mining Bitcoin took place in Iran in this year. So when you add other data, you come with the fact that it's about 1% of the total energy consumption of Iran. And, so I think it is not that much big to cause blackouts in cities or power shortage. Officials are blaming mining, but who are exactly mining Bitcoin and Iran, I think they are mining Bitcoin. And this is not true to put the blame on the people and the masses if there's, you know, the out of date mining facilities, yeah, people in Iran are using cryptocurrencies. But, you know, that in a small quantities, very, very small in the underground if they have, you know, the game of gaining a bunch of dollars. And this cannot cause, you see, blackouts or power shoots in a country with so much resources of oil and gas and,
you know, other possibilities. I just thought that was important to note because, I mean, it was interesting to see people, I guess people who are, like, very anti anti cryptocurrency really jump on that announcement that Iran was, yeah, banning people from being able to to mine it. But, yeah, talking with someone like you who's actually in Iran to say that, no. It's actually kind of silly to think that, you know, Bitcoin mining really was going to take out the energy grid of such a country with so much oil wealth, or so much oil that that that would be, like, possible as, like, kind of silly, and that probably there are more political reasons for that and not necessarily, like, energy reasons for that. Of course. Yeah. Exactly. But maybe continuing on this, thread of, like, imperialism again, what are your thoughts on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as weapons of anti imperialism?
Great. It's my favorite question. First of all, what is, imperialism? So, we can suppose that Lenin was right and the imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. So once again, you have the capitalism in the general sense. So first, I need to define what capitalism is in my point of view, then we can discuss how cryptocurrencies can, be anti capitalist weapon. Yeah. So you know that you cannot find any specific definition of capitalism in any academic textbooks, even in Alfred Marshall's principle of economics, which I can't find any definition for capitalism. They believe, the academy, I mean, believe that capitalism is an abstract economic concept. So when you think it is an abstract concept, then there is no way to change anything. But, for me, I think, capitalism is more a historical concept, a specific system of production, in which the forces of production, I mean the, proterians, the working class, are not the owners of the means of production. So, capitalism for me is an economic machine, which produces a class, which does not have anything, except its working power. And, it's more close to the interpretation of, Morissap, the British economist, from Capital. So, you see that the non owner, the non owner class, the, I mean the indebted class, should bring, his working power to the market, I mean the capitalism, should bring his working power to the market to sell in order to pay his debt, to his life or, to the owners, which are the bourgeoisie. So you see that in capitalism, the socially necessary force becomes the abstract force of labor. And the form of value takes the form of commodity and takes the form of capitalism. Here we have mass human activity in this analysis is thus violently reduced to working hours and at the end become idealized in the form of good and commodity. So, capitalism for me is a regime of separation, separation, between human and the reproductive activity. And I think this, destructive apparatus, works, based on money, especially when money is a mean to store value. And the yes. And cryptocurrencies are a new kind of money. So, it was Deleuze who once, state that, what we need these days definitely is not any critique of Marxism, but a modern theory of money as good as Mars that proceeds from where the left. So for me, cryptocurrency at least gives us the opportunity to teach against the grain by the by somehow, retroactively inter creating money. You know that with the with the cryptography and the blockchain, people, can take their security back, from the state. It can be a weapon in the delusion sense, especially in the state of control. So for me, but it can even be a more devastating weapon a tool to fight against the, very way that capitalism exploits humanity and the value of its socially, necessary force. So you're familiar with the DAOs. You can say for example, yeah, the the GCAS. I I I mean by DAOs are decentralized, autonomous organizations where you can use the, potentialities of smart contracts and the blockchain to build communities in which, tokens determine only the extent to which anyone participate in production, and not a means to just store value and make class difference. And I think not Bitcoin, but the cryptocurrencies in the general ID, can be used, as a rip as our weapon, to resist, I think, the very way that capitalism, exploits, exploit us.
So to you, I guess, money as a representation of value and in which, value is sort of extracted from workers, their surplus value, especially, which is given to the bourgeoisie, sort of, basically, bourgeoisie taking profit, sort of forms the basis of, exploitation under under, like, Marxist thought. But because it's represented through money, it's important to answer the question of how do we reimagine that, and how do we break, I guess, the current monetary regime? And as and how do we have that as part of, I guess, a type of, you know, socialist struggle or some type of struggle against, capitalism?
So you see that, I think, you know, I'm not that much naive to think that we can just walk out of the capitalist zone. But, yeah. But you know that we can build the communities based on the capabilities of the small contracts and the cryptocurrencies to share our surplus existence in a way that are not dominated by the financial institutions. So, we have Marx again because then you change the relation of production, you can change the superstructure of the society in the Marxist analysis. So, then, for example, you can, set a token or a cryptocurrency in a community, that can, somehow play the role of money when it is a means to the exchange or when it wants to bring us monetary calculation. But you observe the rule of money as the means to store value. You know, this is the problem, I think, with the, with the current monetary system because when money become credit, when money become capital, it doesn't have any reference other than the future exploitation of those who are in debt, who do not have money. So I think it is the somehow task of society or the whole community, to just, cover the future needs of all parts of the society, all parts of the community. And I think you have heard about the interpret Harvey's critique of capitalism in seventeen's contradiction in capitalism. In this book, Harvey explicitly mentioned that the, one of the most fundamental contradiction in capitalism is the contradiction between, the exchange value of commodities and the use value of coins. And I think this is because of money that this contradiction happens especially when money becomes an interest of value. And at the end, you you you need some artists or you need some, somehow, some scientists to imagine a new theory of money to just build a new theory about human communication. And I think it is possible because we we have enough resources to match all basic needs of humanity. And you you know that we have 2,000,000,000 people 2,000,000,000 people who are suffering from, you know, that one third of, world are suffering from the water shortage or suffer from yeah. They're they're hungry. Yeah. You know, that's yeah. That that are dominated by goods and commodities. You have some people that are suffering from, yeah, not having fresh water or not having enough food. So I think we can rebuild our small communities. For example, you can take, for example, the GECAS community, because it's for me a real practice of a real practice in the Marxian sense of crypto economies. So, you have the relation between professors and students and the staff, which are managed by cryptocurrency by a token. And this token is somehow managed by the other community and it tends to ownership share. And this is the way that we can fight against capitalism because as I mentioned earlier, capitalism is a systematic machine that separates the process of production from the means of production. So, yeah, if we can solve this contradiction between the ownership of the one who produce, the one who works, I think we can fight against capitalism and we can once again recall the idea of colonialism. We recall the, I mean the philosophic idea of colonialism as the state as the classless state for human. So I think of cryptocurrency like that. I think cryptocurrency has some revolutionary potentialities that's, I think you need some sort of subjectivity to, use them. I think it was it is you. You are doing the same because, you are building a leftist literature for cryptocurrency. Yes. And this is the right way because, you know that the, there is the right thing, domination of, the theories about everything and even about cryptocurrency. They just, they argue that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can bring us those high achieving dream of, true competition in, in the issuance of currency or in the issuance of money. But once again, you have all those, like, capitalist institutions in this high heat and yeah. Because Imperial is the highest stage of capital. We yes. This is all. I think we should build something new with cryptocurrency.
Yeah. I agree. Hey, everyone. If you're enjoying this episode so far, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and join the crypto leftist communities on Discord or Reddit, which you can find links to in the show notes. If you're enjoying the interview or find the content I make important, you can pitch into my efforts starting at $3 a month on patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist to help me out and join the newest patrons like Mikhail and Emily. Any amount really helps since making this stuff isn't free in terms of money or time. As a patron, you'll get a shout out on an episode like I just did and access to Patreon exclusive contents like Q and A episodes, where you can submit and vote on questions you'd like me to answer. Now give my thoughts in roughly twenty minutes. In the latest Patreon Q and A episode, I take a deeper look into the concept of decentralization versus centralization how that could apply to a socialist politics. Of course, I'll still be making free content like this interview to help spread the message that blockchain doesn't need to be used to further entrench capitalist exploitation, and we put our efforts into it. So if that message resonates with you, I hope you'll consider helping out. One side note I wanted to make you guys aware of is that the podcast will now be broadcasted starting from the beginning of the podcast on repeater radio. So if you go to repeater-radio.com, you'll be able to listen to the podcast twice a week starting from the very beginning. They've already bar casted a couple of episodes already, but if you wanted to find a way to catch up and listen to some of the earlier content that I made, then definitely check it out at repeater-radio.com. It's in partnership with, of course, Repeater Books, which is a publishing house based in The UK that publishes radical left wing books. But that's it for me. Let's get back to the interview with Salman Sadeghi. Definitely. Yeah. I I think the yeah. The the hiking hacking stuff, it's very like it's like a bourgeois revolution on top of, like, a bourgeois world, which is very, very, very absurd. But, but yeah. But I I guess if I if I understand correctly, it's really like being able to challenge these type of things that we take for granted under capitalism as being, like, set in stone. It sort of is two birds in one stone and that's it's, it helps us rethink, you know, value and the relationship between value and and money in general. But also, like, the the the role of the state and, like, the relationship between that and, like, the working classes and the, and the owning classes. And, like, through all these different contradictions, we can also use it for anti imperialism.
So yes. So, you know, Bitcoin, in what is now, I think, can you know that when when you talk about money as the representation of value, So you have fiat money as the representation of the representation of value. Because when you have some, good, bad currency or when you have good as a currency, you can say that this is the representation of value. But, you know, that fiat currencies was the representation of the representation of, the representation of gold, and they are the representation of at the end, they are the representation of the representation of value, a double set of math, you know. And I think at most Bitcoin can just take off one. And if we want to uncover, the first mask, that separates value from what separates value from its quality. Because I think it's a qualitative concept, not a quantitative. And I think this is the critical point because the right wing just want us to at most, take off one mask, you know. They want to say it is like batching to a good batch monetary system. But besides instead of gold, we have now the digital gold, we have Bitcoin. So, the year, it is more durable. It is more limited than gold. It is yeah. It can work better than gold. But for me, it is not all about the message of Satoshi, the decentralization of governance, decentralization of power and responsibility. And at the end to somehow build a society, a free money society, a society in which all the members can participate in productive activity outside the realm of finance, outside the realm of the colonized realm of textileism. Yeah. And at that society, I think the very meaning of, your productive activity will change, because the very way that the production happened, it changed.
So but, yeah, basically, like, undermining imperial power through, in a way, sort of opening the market a little bit in in one sense, if you look at it in one way, where, you know, at least for you, taking your example that you gave earlier, like, you weren't able to get a position because of your nationality. If, you know, probably a big reason why they didn't do that is because they probably rely on, banking infrastructure which, adheres to, you know, American policy or something like that. But if there was a way in which they didn't have to rely on the American or Western sort of banking infrastructure, you know, through through something like Bitcoin, through some sort of cryptocurrency, then it sort of it undermines in a big way, by creating this this sort of, like, using, like, the digital world as a as a form of, yeah, as a form of, like, giving you access into, yeah, into into to making your own money in the way that you want to, I guess. Yeah. And and using it to build, even if you want, completely new forms of relationships between, between people and new relationships, in relationship to production to form your own communities that are not reliant on the states, that are not reliant on, the banking infrastructure. So do you have any favorites, like I think you you mentioned you've mentioned Marx and Deleuze and and a couple of other people, but is there any, like, particular philosopher that you like to refer to when it comes to, like, for you thinking about, cryptocurrency or blockchain?
So I think, cryptocurrencies, somehow you can find interesting ideas in the loose, philosophy, and the linkage to cryptocurrency. But myself, I'm working on Alain Badriu's philosophy to build my literature about, how the event of Bitcoin can bring us, the truth. How can we build the truth of the event of cryptocurrency? You know that because of the intrinsic contradiction in capitalism, crisis are not are inevitable. So it is in the moment of crisis that the critical point of capitalism shows themselves, you know, to us. And now we have the infrastructure, we have the P2P relations, we have the cryptography and we have the blockchain. And so this time, I think we are more strong than ever to fight again the very way that they exploit us. So it was Marx once again in the Communist Manifesto that wrote that capitalism is the domination of past, over present. I really like these sentences by by March because by March and, Angus because, you know, that it is the way that money, I think, dominates, you know, money is a domination of past, I think, over present. When it when it is so it means to so value. It's the domination of the past relation in the future and in the present and in the future. So how yes, how can we teach our time or our future back from the capitalistic state, from the bourgeoisie? We as devotion class, we as the bourgeoisie, we as the proletarians, we as the non owners. So, I think, cryptocurrency promises something really new, a really new future, for humanity because when a worker can take his time back from his boss, then, yes, then he can be a human. Then he can do yeah. Then he can do human activity. And then, yeah, we can solve the problem of situation, the problem of alienation. I think that's, happens between, when a human is separated from his activity, from his potential, from his desires. And, yeah. No. This is the best, Chieftain, looks for me.
Yeah. I I like that that that phrase of, you know, the past dominating the present. I think it's for me, I think of, like, how previous, like, previous forms of hierarchy or exploitation sort of have been defining our present forms of of hierarchy and exploitation. You know, if you you come from a family of, of of wealthy industrialists, then probably in the present you are probably not too worried about, too worried about making money or too worried about having a job or having a house or or what have you because, yeah, the maybe you're the the generations before you did the exploitation so that you don't have to, do it in the same way.
No. Because yeah. Because you have money. You have capital. And when you have capital, you you need to put it in financial market or you need to put it in banks. When you put it in financial institutions or put put it in banks, they use it to just pull the bombs in the Middle East or, in the Africa. Yeah. And
this is the end. Yeah. No. Yeah. I mean, in the case of imperialism, I mean, it's really the past of colonialism that has sort of defined in previous forms of imperialism that have defined really the current ones. Do you have anything to say towards maybe those of us who may live in the West who may be skeptical of crypto or blockchain?
I think they need you know that blockchain and cryptocurrency are the the souvenir of the West. So, they need, I think, to be more skeptical about their government and the the liberal democracy and not about the blockchain. That's being a transparency and confidence. So what what what is the problem with the blockchain? It is all about the transparency and security. So, I think they need to be more about their liberal democracy. I love that. I guess yeah.
It's sort of like, to be so worked up about about cryptocurrency is sort of whenever you we have yeah. In in the West, we're we have so many bigger problems to deal with, that to focus so much energy on blockchain sometimes I feel is like a bit a bit of a waste. Of course, there are there are relevant criticisms to make and and, you know, reasons to be skeptical, but, like, why can't you put that same energy towards, yeah, the idea of liberal democracy or the idea of capitalism and, and what what what the media which has an interest in, you know, sort of how well the the state does and how well the capitalist class does in your country, like, when they have an interest in that, like, there where there isn't as much it's just sort of a question, like, why don't you put as much effort into that as well?
Well, yes. They don't like, cryptocurrencies. The the idea behind the the true idea behind cryptocurrency, because, I think they, they understand because they're not that it can threaten the authority and they can threaten the the the power relation. And we cannot expect from mass media to cover truly cryptocurrencies or the true potentials of decentralized currencies. So who one who knows exactly how much financial, the the banking system consume energy. But you see that the the most wealthiest, like, Elon Musk, nagging about Bitcoin, you know, power consumption or environmental impact, when we know that the capital is the blame for all these environmental degradation. So when you have when you have when you are the wealthiest, you you you are, the you are the exact the exact person who is the blame, for, environment. But you you see that he put the blame on Bitcoin. So, it's like a joke.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's whatever it's it's it's it's yeah. His class of of people, the capitalist class, I mean, billionaires who are doing the vast majority of emitting, like, way more carbon than than everyone else and at a much, you know, the much bigger problem than it is, Bitcoin mining. Of course.
They are the problem.
I'm I'm all the way at the last question. I don't know if there's any, like, last things you really want to mention before, before we wrap it up.
So, once again, let me thank you for your invitation, and nothing special. I I think, we should know, that, we cannot sit on your on our ass and see that the world is changing. We should contribute something, to the change, I think. And, it was once again Deleuze, that, in his poster script on the societies of control just invites us to renew our, weapons to, build a new, core of, resistance. So, the world has changed and we should know that and we should look for new weapons, which I think that, this is the time to fight against money because we have the infrastructure and we have the technological tools. So if the losers were alive, I think he recommended us to take, keep the currency as our weapon. So this is all.
Thank you. I think that that was a a really nice way to end it. Maybe just to finish it off. I mean, first off to say yeah. I mean, thank you for coming on, and I'm really happy that you were able to share your experience with us. Yeah. It was really, nice to hear from someone who is, you know, living in Iran, who is Iranian, who has the experience of living in a country which is suffering under economic sanctions and has done quite a bit of of research on cryptocurrencies, and blockchain. So maybe to finish it off, could you let people know where they can follow you, keep up with you and your work? So,
thank you. They can just follow me on my medium or on my Twitter. This is, Sally Sotheby. In every where they can just Google it and find, my page.
Thank you so much, Sally. It's been, really a pleasure.