Hello.
I’m Ehsan Bahrami, a 33 years old man from Iran and I want to be a #Zcash ambassador in Iran, I don’t doubt that I can handle the responsibility in the best way possible.
For me, introducing #Zcash to Persian is a one-year-old goal and in that matter, I added the Farsi language to the Forum and ask people on my Farsi Instagram page to join but as I expected no one showed up, after that, I decided to run a #Zcash Twitter page in Farsi and because of the lack of time I asked for a grant to drop one of my jobs and make time for the page, but I didn’t get any reply and I couldn’t start the Persian page but in my original page(@bitcoinbuddy121) I kept to support #Zcash and I will keep doing it.
Now that I have told you a bit about my passion to introduce #Zcash to more people, I will share some information about Iran and explain why I think Iran has the potential for the adoption of #Zcash and crypto in general. In the end, I will share some of my plans as an ambassador.
Part 1: Iran’s Economy
Iran is a large country in the middle east with a population of more than 85 million.
Iran’s GDP was $1.43T in 2021 based on The International Monetary Fund report, Also the inflation is more than 30% for three years in a row, and when GDP increase alongside inflation, it’s not a good sign in my opinion.
I believe if the economic situation stays the same then the middle class will disappear soon and we will have only two classes of people, very rich and very poor.
That’s the part crypto can help to save the middle class.
Also, because of Iran’s limited access to the world’s financial markets, Persian retail investors had a few investment options including the Tehran Stock Exchange¹, real estate, and foreign currencies, But after the birth of the crypto market and because of its decentralized nature, Persian retail investors found it as a great opportunity to participate and invest in a global market.
for Persian crypto is not just another investment option, it’s an opportunity they’ve never had before, at least in the last 40 years.
Part 2: Iran’s Internet access
Iran’s internet coverage is around 95% in 2022 and most people use 4G cellular data through mobile phones to access the internet but the internet filtering is tight in Iran and platforms like Youtube, Twitter, telegram and …etc got filtered.
This is why VPNs are one of the basic tools, everyone use in Iran.
Also, Iran has a national Internet data center and moving towards reducing reliance on global servers for key and sensitive online services.
at the beginning of the new administration, some of Iran’s officials talked about a national internet network and suggested cutting Iran from the global internet which was widely protested by the public and other officials.
the Internet was cut off 2 times in the past during the mass protest against high inflation and each time lasted for around 2 weeks.
Part 3: Social media networks in Iran
Persians are among the greatest fans of social media networks and it’s mainly because Iran suffers from a lack of hobbies. There are no bars, parties, or dancing unless in private and hidden places and that’s why Persians mostly interact with each other through social media platforms.
Around 75% of the people older than 18 years old use one or more platforms simultaneously.
Instagram and Whatsapp are the most widely used platform in Iran and among a few platforms, people can access without a VPN.
Whatsapp usage is around 61%, Instagram 45%, Telegram 36%, Pinterest 22%, youtube 4%, and Twitter 2%.
The cool fact is Twitter users are more effective in Iran society than others.
Part 4: Crypto market in Iran
based on the local exchanges reports, around 12 million people in Iran own Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Nobitex, the largest crypto exchange in Iran, reported in 2021, the number of its active users has grown by 728% from 390,000 users in 2020 to 3,700,000 in 2021, the youngest user is 18 years old and the oldest is 71, and the largest group of users are from 31 years old to 40 that represents 44% of the exchange users, also 84% of all users are male.
Based on reports from all major local exchanges, crypto users in Iran trade around $180M per day and around 70% of people use local platforms for trading crypto.
Also, KYC is forced and every crypto users need to complete full KYC to use the local services.
local crypto exchanges are the gateway for the flow of money in and out of the crypto market and there is no privacy when it comes to exchanging crypto to Rial² or vice versa.
Crypto regulations in Iran are soft and Iran is a crypto-friendly country, and from the Islamic perspective, crypto is considered Halal³.
Bitcoin mining in Iran is legal with 2 conditions, 1. miners need to get approval from the government cause the cost of electricity for mining is higher and if people try to mine crypto with regular electricity at home or in factories then its illegal, and all the mined coin plus miner device will confiscate by the government, but even with a higher electricity price, mining is very profitable in Iran.
2. Miners don’t have the right to sell their mined Coins in the free market and they allow to sell their mined coins only to the Central bank of Iran in exchange for Rial, then miners can exchange the Rial with everything they like in the open market.
By now, Iran’s mining industry represents 5% of the global Bitcoin Hashrate, and because of the cheap electricity, some experts predict Iran will represent 10% of the bitcoin global Hashrate by 2025.
Part 5: why do I want to be a #Zcash ambassador in Iran?
The first reason is that I believe in the crypto market and especially in #Zcash, believing in something is different from simply loving it because there are actual reasons behind a belief.
So I will explain why I believe in crypto and I think it’s genius.
Frankly thinking too much about the financial part of crypto will not lead us to the right answers and I don’t measure crypto by financial rules, seeing supply and demand as the cause is naive just like thinking the economy is about the money. The way I analyze crypto is by imagining all the possible ways that crypto can help humans and make human lives better.
The reason anything has value is the human perspective and the question is what will crypto do for humanity.
There are many things Crypto can do, for example, it can make the International transfer of value cheaper, faster, and safer, it can make a fair opportunity for everyone in the world to participate in the market, and it can create a virtual economy in parallel with the real-world economy or it can transfer funds from A to B as Milton Friedman predicted, but these reasons are not the main reason I believe in crypto, I believe in crypto because I think it can solve one the biggest threats humanity faced today.
For thousands of years, humanity ripped apart by the will and desires of some people.
Some of them separate us through our religion. Some of them separate us through our country, our skin color, our beliefs, our way of living, or our worldview.
We separate from each other so much that we started to hate each other and yet it wasn’t enough, then we cracked and weaponized the nucleus of an Atom to release enormous energy to kill each other for good, and we did that before using that energy for producing the power we need to live.
If we don’t stop the separation process, If we don’t t accelerate the solidarity between human beings by focusing on our similarities, soon someone will start a war that will be the end of us and I think we are already late.
There is an imminent and real threat to our existence that no one should take lightly.
I think crypto can create a worldwide community and take us one step further toward erasing borderlines.
One day after many more steps, we might stop defining ourselves by the place we were born or by the language we talk, and then we can live as humanity.
If it wasn’t for crypto I didn’t have a Twitter account and I didn’t know many people from different countries.
Because of crypto today I only have 3 Persian friends on Twitter while I have 132 friends from other countries, mostly the US.
If it wasn’t for crypto I never know how much I love Americans while Iran’s and the US governments do not respect each other and try to demolish each other every day for almost 40 years.
Because of crypto my government never can convince me to participate in a war against any country.
That’s the main reason I believe in crypto.
Another reason that I like to work as an ambassador is that every man needs to work and it’s really good and effective if a man loves the job he is doing.
Part 6: why #Zcash is special?
Well, #Zcash is special for a few reasons,
- The story behind #Zcash
- Using Zero-knowledge proof cryptography to provide privacy
- Its exceptional community
- Its characteristics as independence and freedom preserving technology.
There are only two possibilities in any country when it comes to the government’s role. - government run by rational good people, in that case, they will respect freedom and privacy
- Government run by tyrant control seeking people, in that case, #Zcash technology can use against them.
For example, if donors used #Zcash instead of BTC to fund Canadian protesters there was no way for Justin Trudeau’s administration to track the funds and Covid lunacy would have stopped sooner.
Part 7: my plans as an ambassador
As an ambassador, I will choose my plans based on the sociology and culture of Iran.
Because I live in a country with high inflation during the last 3 years, I can do more with a $1000 per month and I can save some of that money for the next year when more expensive plans like renting a hotel conference room and creating a Farsi wallet and running a fast 24/7 node starts.
Also because of the same high inflation, I need payments at least one month after I start otherwise I can not make time to execute my plans as efficiently as I expected and there is no reason to do a job inefficiently.
- Manage an Instagram and Twitter page to introduce #Zcash. Share official news and events and…etc, in Farsi.
- Introduce and reward the most active follower every month with a T-shirt as a gift (only on Instagram)
- Pay for promoting my posts and tweets on Instagram and Twitter(if possible on Twitter from Iran) for the first year of activity.
- Hire a part-time photoshop designer to design high-quality pictures, clips, advertising Card, and bulletins.
- Send advertising bulletins to universities at the beginning of every term to introduce #Zcash to new students (3 months after the start of the program)
- Create a youtube channel in Farsi to cover #Zcash news and analyze the price charts(6 months after the start of the program)
- Rent a meeting room at one of the best hotels in Shiraz⁴ and Hold monthly physical meetings one year after the start of the program to make sure the room will be full of true investors. ( without a big crowd, the meeting will have a negative effect)
- Find young and good software engineers at Shiraz University to work on a Farsi wallet that connects to a local node. (one year after the start of the program)
- Run two telegram accounts for the Persian community to discuss anything related to #Zcash and another account to inform the community about all of the content we created on all of our social media pages on all platforms. (one year after the start of the program)
- Contact local exchanges and ask them to list #Zcash.
- The final goal is to introduce #Zcash to all of the 12 million crypto users in Iran until 2026.
If my time was free or I had more capital I would do all of that without asking for a grant.
Thank you for reading my proposal.
Ehsan Bahrami.