Iran internet blackout raises questions about citizens' access to cryptocurrency

Iran’s government cut internet access on Thursday as protests spread across the country, prompting questions about whether citizens can still use cryptocurrencies. About seven million Iranians are estimated to be crypto users, Statista says, and TRM Labs tracked roughly $3.7 billion in total crypto flows in Iran between January and July 2025.

The outages come amid protests over worsening economic conditions and after the rial hit record lows against the US dollar, and some outside observers such as Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley have suggested buying Bitcoin as a store of wealth. Without internet, transacting in crypto is far more difficult, but several technologies could help.

Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite equipment can provide high-speed internet and there have been calls for Musk to deploy it as he did during a previous blackout in June 2025; unconfirmed reports claim he has quietly granted a request. Blockstream’s satellite network can broadcast Bitcoin data without the internet, while Jack Dorsey’s peer-to-peer messaging service Bitchat uses a Bluetooth mesh to pass Bitcoin transaction data between phones — though eventually a device with internet is needed for on-chain confirmation.

Chromestats shows Bitchat has been downloaded more than 1.4 million times since launch, with over 19,828 downloads in the last day and more than 460,724 in the last week.

Key Topics

Crypto, Iran, Bitcoin, Starlink, Blockstream, Bitchat