Chinese companies have jumped on the bandwagon of bitcoin mining, either under the guise of cloud computing or providing mining hosting services, in an effort to bypass regulations.
The peer-to-peer bitcoin trading network LocalBitcoins has shut down all trading operations for Iranian users, likely in response to sanctions against the country's government.
On April 24, 2019, the first bitcoin ATM in the Islamic Republic of Iran was revealed at the 12th International Exhibition of Exchange, Bank and Insurance in Tehran.
Many Chinese cryptominers have migrated to places with cheap electricity and favorable policies as a result of the escalated government crackdown on cryptocurrency and its production process. Since late 2018, the oil-rich Middle East country of Iran has become a hotspot for Chinese miners.
Stranded Iranian students in the United Kingdom have turned to Bitcoin as a tool to circumvent the economic sanctions placed on their country, according to a Guardian report
For the first time, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has traced illicit bitcoin activity to the public addresses of two sanctioned individuals.