The Update That Caught Attention
Just yesterday, slipping from the end of 2025 into the new year,
Iran’s Ministry of Defense export arm known as Mindex updated its payment terms.
Foreign buyers can now pay in cryptocurrency for advanced systems like Emad ballistic missiles, Shahed drones, Soleimani-class warships, and various short-range air defenses.
Why It Makes a Kind of Sense
Look at the backdrop. The rial lost roughly half its value against the dollar last year. Inflation sat around 42 percent.
Protests returned. Even the central bank governor resigned.
With sanctions tightening for decades, traditional banking routes stay mostly closed off.
Crypto offers a workaround. Iran already uses it for imports and channels mined Bitcoin toward state needs.
Extending the option to arms exports simply lets buyers in similar predicaments settle accounts in ways harder to interrupt.
The Complications Few Are Ignoring
Western governments view this as a clear attempt to weaken sanctions.
Chain analysis keeps improving, so transactions remain far from invisible. Expect sharper scrutiny, maybe fresh restrictions.
Mindex insists in its FAQs that delivery poses no problem thanks to years of circumvention experience. Reality often proves messier. Risk-averse buyers might hesitate.
A Split Reality at Home
Inside Iran the rules stay strict. Citizens cannot use crypto for daily payments. Exchanges operate only with licenses that grant authorities full visibility. Advertising is outlawed.
Still, somewhere between ten and twelve million Iranians hold digital assets anyway, mostly as protection against currency collapse.
The state prefers to keep the technology on a short leash for its own purposes.
What It Might Mean Going Forward
This looks like one more thread in the pattern of sanctioned countries folding crypto into survival strategies. Provocative without question. Likely to prompt countermeasures.
Yet from Tehran’s vantage point, with options dwindling, the logic feels almost inevitable. The real test will come if actual transactions follow, or if the policy remains mostly posture for now.
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