Why Did LocalBitcoin Suspend Operations in Iran?

By Prashant Jha

The crypto market has been enjoying its time in the sun for some time now but it seems that a recent development might deprive Iranian crypto enthusiasts of the same degree of bliss. Of late, it has been noticed that the popular peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange LocalBitcoin has stopped providing its trading and escrow services to crypto users who live in Iran.

Iranian users have seemingly been banned from this commonly used peer-to-peer crypto trading platform. As the Iran-specific website of the company tells us, the trading service has been disconnected, at least for the time being, as we have not been told when the service will see a resumption in the country. The website says that the service is “currently not available”.

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The website does not tell us anything about why exactly the service has been discontinued in the country, when it is working perfectly well in the other areas of its operations. However, conjecture suggests that it is a result of the increasingly tense equations between the governments of Iran and the US. In the recent days, we have seen a resurgence of tenuity and conflict in Iran-US ties and this decision by LocalBitcoin to discontinue service in Iran in the wake of economic sanctions being issued against the country.

However, an intriguing statistic about LocalBitcoin’s Iran operations emerges from data aggregation website Coin Dance. It seems that right before the service was withdrawn for the Iranian users, the volume of the platform’s rial-measured trade had grown majorly.

It is also to be noted that users of LocalBitcoin living in Iran will be able to withdraw their Bitcoins from the exchange but not carry out any trading directly. Considering that the recent times have seen increasing use of and interest in crypto in Iran, this comes as a major blow to the country’s significantly large population of crypto enthusiasts.