Chile, Lebanon, Hong Kong, France, Catalonia, Greece, Venezuela and now even Iran; the list of countries in which the street protests have come to besiege the palaces of power begins to widen more and more and the great street demonstrations that upset each of these countries have at least two characteristics in common and that is the intolerance of the common people towards those who govern and the support of the cryptocurrency community to those who protest. Each of the countries mentioned, then, is characterized by a surge in bitcoin trading volumes and a rise in local trade prices; although it is difficult to demonstrate a correlation of this kind to many observers, it begins to appear obvious that bitcoin grows in value as the population's confidence in governments and institutions decreases. Yesterday, images from Iran in which protesters attack and burn down a local branch of the central bank went around the world; the cryptocurrency community was among the first to share videos that came from Iran also because we are talking about a country where a large part of mining is concentrated (thanks to the low cost of electricity due to government support to keep bills low) and all those who deal with crypto have at least some contact in Iran.
The bitcoiners were among the very first to realize what was happening and they contributed greatly to making the videos coming from the Shiite country viral; impossible then not to notice that most of the comments that accompany these videos are just bitcoiners, many accounts have shown their belonging to the community going to comment under the videos simply with the word "bitcoin". What is happening is that Iran, like so many other countries, is the victim of unilaterally imposed US sanctions, which has led the government to revise its own positions in cryptocurrency mining, moving from a position of total closure to that of a short time ago he foresaw the complete ban of mining activities in the country with the intention of regulating bitcoin mining without going so far as to make it illegal. In fact, the countries that are under sanctions, in fact, realize better than others how important cryptocurrencies are at geopolitical level to free themselves from the lethal grip of the US, with Russia and Cuba at the top of the list, which are the two countries that suffer on the international scene US aggression has been for a long time. The protests, even violent, have left for Iran following the government's communication of wanting to ration gasoline, with an increase in pump prices of over 50%; the choice to attack a branch of the central bank should therefore be read as a demonstration that more and more people are intolerant of the economic policies wished by the government, which often proved to be bankrupt.
Clearly for Iran it is not an easy situation to manage as, as we have explained, it is the international context that has put the government in difficulty, but the population does not seem willing to hear reasons and asks for a change of pace; the assault of a branch of the central bank is a highly symbolic act and it would not surprise me that the protests turned out to be precisely the bitcoiners present in the country. If this were to be the case it would be the first documented case in which the cryptocurrency community comes out of its niche and takes possession of the squares driving a popular demonstration. Let's clarify immediately that there is no evidence of this and that mine is just a guess, nor does the broad support offered to protesters by the community on an international level prove anything, yet bitcoiners have some features that make them particularly suited to drive a protest in any country; meanwhile, on average, they are all young (under 35), there is coordination in every country that would allow them to take thousands of people to the streets, they have an anti-system and anti-government mentality. For a long time now we have been reporting from the pages of this site as bitcoin is above all a political fact and personally I find it almost inevitable that from the various communities at the national level a political leadership will also emerge; many children in sight in the various communities are still young, but they show clear ideas and I would not exclude that soon the world of the crypto as well as representing a thorn in the side for the governments at the economic level it becomes also at political level.
