Iran electricity crisis and how it's shaping crypto adoption

When the Iran electricity crisis, a nationwide collapse in power supply driven by aging infrastructure, mismanagement, and international sanctions. Also known as Iran energy crisis, it has pushed millions to seek alternatives to state-controlled utilities. The government cut power to homes for hours each day—just as crypto mining and trading became one of the few ways to earn real income. This wasn’t a choice. It was survival.

The FATF blacklist, a global financial isolation tool that blocks Iran from using traditional banking systems made things worse. No SWIFT. No international transfers. No access to dollars. So people turned to Bitcoin. Not for speculation. For food. For medicine. For rent. Peer-to-peer exchanges like LocalBitcoins and Paxful exploded in use. Miners rigged generators to run off diesel and solar, turning the country’s energy chaos into a decentralized mining network. The crypto sanctions, U.S. and EU restrictions that target financial flows to sanctioned entities didn’t stop crypto—they redirected it. Iran became a case study in how crypto bypasses state control when the system fails.

This isn’t just about Iran. It’s a warning sign. When countries face energy shortages, crypto mining becomes a magnet for cheap power. Angola banned mining outright after losing 2,000 MW to rigs. Pakistan, on the other hand, gave 2,000 MW to miners legally. The difference? Policy. In Iran, there’s no policy—just desperation. And that desperation is driving innovation. People are trading crypto to pay for electricity. They’re using DeFi to convert tokens into gas vouchers. They’re running wallet nodes on phones with no internet, using mesh networks. It’s raw, unfiltered adoption—born from crisis, not curiosity.

What you’ll find below are real stories from the front lines: how Iranians use crypto to survive sanctions, why fake airdrops are flooding the market, and how global regulators are scrambling to keep up. These aren’t theoretical debates. These are people trading tokens to keep their lights on.