Comment by crazygringo
18 hours ago
There's a major distinction, however, in that it's a heck of a lot harder to safely and reliably lug briefcases or suitcases full of $100 bills from Chicago to Tehran, than it is to click and transfer some Bitcoin. Which is the whole point.
Yeah, crypto is a safer, more reliable alternative for many use cases, including those that are fundamentally honest. For instance, if you're an honest person trapped as a citizen in a despotic authoritarian state that doesn't respect your property rights, crypto may be the safest, most reliable alternative for storing and transferring your hard-earned savings.
Ironically, crypto has developed something significantly better for these use cases called stablecoin, which isn't really decentralized.
A currency peg is a double-edged sword in and of itself, to say nothing of the risk brought into the equation by having to trust a stablecoin issuer.
Yes, mostly they are distributed via pallets out the back of C130s
(Definitely in Iraq and Afghanistan, I don't know if there's any back channel deals at the moment paying off Iranians in 100$ bills but I wouldn't be surprised if we were nudging for regime change by funding revolutionaries)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's limited exclusively to countries the US is currently invading...
It's not hard even for Iran to trade gold and oil in USD.
> The Wall Street Journal reported, saying the hidden conduit enabled Tehran to receive up to $8.4 billion last year.
[1]: https://www.iranintl.com/en/202510060867