Iran International
Iran's deadly crackdown on protestors addressed only one of the existential threats to its rule, as economic and environmental crises look set to defy any easy solution by the beleaguered state.
On December 28, a strike by shopkeepers in Tehran’s markets triggered protests that rapidly spread far beyond their original setting.
Nearly a month later, estimates suggest that at least 36,500 people may have been killed in clashes and crackdowns across more than 400 cities and 4,000 separate sites of confrontation.
These figures remain difficult to independently verify amid prolonged internet disruptions. Still, even allowing for uncertainty, their magnitude points to what many describe as a potentially significant turning point in the country’s modern history.
Even before the protests began, Iran was already under severe strain: persistent inflation, an energy system operating close to capacity, mounting environmental pressures, and security structures weakened by a mix of external shocks and internal attrition.
The events that unfolded after December 28 did not create these pressures. They appear instead to have exposed them, intensified them, and increasingly bound them together.
An economy with little cushion left
Official figures put unemployment at just over seven percent, but nearly 40 percent of the unemployed were university graduates, a mismatch that had been widening for years.
The national currency continued to lose value, the Tehran stock exchange spent much of the year in decline, and liquidity pressures rippled through the private sector. Point-to-point inflation rose from about 39 percent in early spring to nearly 53 percent by late autumn.
Even households traditionally considered middle-income were cutting back on basic goods. Installment-based purchases for food items, including fruit and nuts, had become increasingly common.
The government’s proposed budget projected wage increases of 20 percent, well below the officially acknowledged inflation rate. But even that was rejected by lawmakers outright, citing unrealistic revenue assumptions.
The banking sector added another layer of fragility. One major private bank formally acknowledged insolvency weeks before the protests began. Credit expansion continued largely through money creation, reinforcing inflation rather than growth.
When markets shut down after December 28, they did so with limited reserves. A month of disrupted commerce appears to have left many businesses with little remaining buffer, while reports of burned commercial districts and threatened asset seizures have compounded losses.
Even under optimistic assumptions, restoring activity would require substantial public spending. The availability of such resources remains unclear.
Energy and limits of revenue
Energy has long been treated as Iran’s most reliable economic lever. That assumption has increasingly come under strain.
Oil exports never fully recovered from earlier sanctions, and recent enforcement efforts appear to have further narrowed room for maneuver. Other energy sales once described as relatively insulated—particularly gas and electricity exports to neighboring countries—have also faced growing pressure.
At the same time, domestic shortages intensified.
Power plants turned to heavy fuel oil, worsening air pollution, while export volumes were quietly reduced to meet internal demand.
The tension has become increasingly structural: exporting energy risks domestic instability, while retaining it limits revenue.
These constraints matter because energy income underpins much of public spending, including security outlays. Budget plans approved in December to bolster military capabilities in the next Iranian year rely heavily on oil-backed revenues—funding streams that appear increasingly uncertain.
Without a stable energy surplus, both fiscal recovery and political containment could become harder to sustain.
Environmental stress
Environmental pressures have shifted from background concern toward immediate risk.
Official estimates attribute around 58,000 deaths annually to air pollution. Water scarcity has become acute enough that authorities have publicly acknowledged difficulties supplying drinking water to the capital, with rainfall described as the only short-term relief.
Agriculture, which consumes over 90 percent of national water use and employs nearly a fifth of the workforce, cannot be restructured quickly without risking further social disruption.
Modernization would require investment levels current budgets may struggle to support.
Security erosion
Alongside these pressures, signs of strain have appeared within the security apparatus.
Equipment losses during recent regional conflicts, the deaths of senior commanders, and repeated cyber breaches exposing sensitive databases have raised questions about internal resilience.
Externally, Iran has lost key regional partners, while negotiations with Western powers remain stalled and unpredictable.
Diplomatic defections abroad, including asylum requests by senior officials, are cited by analysts as possible indicators of diminishing confidence within parts of the system.
After December 28
What distinguishes the period since December 28 is not only the scale of violence, but its social reach.
If the current death toll estimates are even roughly accurate, a large share of the population would now be directly connected to loss—through families, relatives, or neighbors—potentially creating levels of resentment that may be difficult to contain through force alone.
Inside the country, prolonged internet disruptions have obscured events, but have not halted them. Outside, large diaspora communities have mobilized in parallel, amplifying international attention and pressure.
Taken together, the available figures suggest that the crises present before December 28—while severe—were fragmented. The response to the protests appears to have bound them more tightly together.
The numbers, rather than the slogans, help explain why many Iranians who have spoken publicly since the crackdown say they see little prospect of a simple return to earlier conditions.
Blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis estimates that Iran’s crypto ecosystem exceeded $7.78 billion in 2025.
Any figure attached to Iran’s crypto economy is of course partial: both the state and private users have powerful incentives to conceal activity, whether to limit sanctions exposure or avoid domestic scrutiny.
What is increasingly clear, however, is that the state now dominates a large share of that volume.
Chainalysis estimates that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps processed more than $3 billion in crypto transactions last year. Israel’s counter-terror financing authority has published a seizure order listing 187 crypto addresses worth roughly $1.5 billion in Tether, a crypto denomination pegged to the dollar.
New findings by the blockchain analytics and crypto-compliance firm Elliptic link Iran’s central bank to at least $507 million in purchases of dollar-pegged Tether (USDT).
That stockpile could supplement constrained foreign-exchange reserves and help authorities lean against sudden spikes in the rial’s parallel market.
In effect, USDT can function as an off-balance-sheet foreign-exchange buffer: accumulated outside correspondent banking channels, mobilized through intermediaries, and sold into rial markets via local exchanges and over-the-counter desks when pressure builds.
Access, however, is not evenly distributed. Reports indicate state blessing for—or "whitelisting"—internet connectivity for certain traders, even as much of the country has endured a pervasive internet blackout since a deadly crackdown on protestors ramped up on Jan. 8.
When the rial comes under pressure, connectivity itself becomes an instrument of intervention: stablecoin-based market operations still require traders who can connect, quote prices, and settle transactions.
Alternate reality for households
Iran’s central bank has imposed limits on currency trading and transaction flows, while rolling out an anti-speculation tax regime covering gold, jewelry, foreign currency and cryptocurrencies.
The effect has been to raise the cost of traditional inflation hedges while signaling that policymakers now view household portfolio shifts as a macroeconomic risk.
The central bank has moved to cap individual crypto holdings at $10,000, despite warnings from Iranian traders and economists that such restrictions would choke savings and push activity further underground.
On the mining side, the divide is even starker. State-linked and religious institutions are among the largest players, in part because electricity tariffs in Iran are not uniform.
Iran International has reported repeated allegations of crypto mining at state-sponsored sites, including mosques, which benefit from reduced energy rates—an obvious advantage in an industry where profitability hinges on power costs.
The result is effectively two mining economies: small operators running rigs at home or in workshops, attempting to stay invisible, and state-linked actors with access to cheaper electricity, larger facilities, and more predictable protection.
Authorities have periodically blamed illegal neighborhood miners, but some experts see that focus as a way to deflect attention from deeper problems of grid management and governance.
Where the cheapest power is concentrated in privileged institutions and enforcement is uneven, the largest rents accrue not to households plugging in a single machine, but to organized actors with access.
Iran has become a cutting-edge battlefield of monetary adaptation. The central bank experiments with stablecoins to stabilize the rial, while households use the same rails to escape it.
A tightly capped, KYC-only micro-saver lane could offer households limited protection for modest savings while increasing transparency and helping isolate state-connected networks operating at scale.
The unresolved question is whether regulated crypto channels can be structured to distinguish household self-preservation from state-linked finance—or whether policy choices will continue to push both into the same shadows.
Whether the state and its beleaguered citizenry can defy mounting economic pressure may hang in the balance.
Domestic leagues have resumed, fixtures have been brought forward, and state-aligned media have amplified claims that the country is returning to ordinary life.
That portrayal clashes with lived reality. Even under severely restricted internet access, videos of brutal crackdowns – particularly from January 8 and 9 – have circulated, showing the scale of violence used against protesters.
Much of society remains in mourning. Families are grieving thousands of young people, including dozens of athletes, and official claims of normalcy ring hollow. What disrupts the state’s carefully assembled image are unscripted gestures that resist being folded into the official storyline.
The match goes on but the joy does not
For the state’s project of normalcy to work, sport must deliver more than competition. It must deliver emotion. A goal is meant to be followed by celebration; a win is meant to bring release. Instead, a visible rupture has set in. Players score and walk away. The whistle blows and faces remain closed, expressions blank.
In recent weeks, many players have kept their celebrations muted as a gesture of solidarity with the uprising and a mark of respect for the dead, including fellow athletes – while stopping short of openly defying orders to play.
That tension has also fueled backlash against the few moments that look like unguarded celebration or emotion. After a Mes-e Rafsanjan F.C. victory and following Esteghlal F.C. staff reactions to a disallowed goal against Tractor S.C., criticism spread quickly across social media.
Former national team player Mohammad Taghavi voiced the sentiment plainly, arguing that players should not be taking the field at all.
“These footballers had no right to play under these circumstances. They could have claimed illness and avoided playing,” he told Iran International.
Sports journalist Mohsen Salehi described the resumption of matches as a staged display, even when players refrain from celebrating.
“The regime wants to turn footballers’ legs into tools of propaganda, projecting a false image in which life appears to be continuing as usual,” he wrote.
The question remains whether athletes – especially footballers – are willing to become props in that spectacle. When a country is in mourning, sport cannot remain a neutral island. Footballers are not only players; they are public figures with obligations to the communities that elevated them.
“Running on a field that reeks of blood is participation in a grand lie. Until the true scale of this repression is made clear and those who ordered and carried out these crimes are held accountable, what value does soccer really have? Players stand before the judgment of history. They must choose between being instruments of power or standing with the people,” Salehi added.
Taking such a position can carry consequences for the players.
though those costs pale in comparison with what the country is enduring. Tehran prosecutor has recently opened cases against 15 sports figures and actors for supporting the national uprising.
round the same time, reports emerged that Persepolis F.C. player Reza Shekari and Omid Ravankhah, head coach of Iran’s under-23 national team, were briefly detained on arrival at Tehran’s international airport over support for the protests.
Women’s soccer and foreign involvement
Signs that normalcy has not returned are also visible in institutional decisions. Farideh Shojaei, the federation’s vice-president for women’s football, announced the cancellation of two planned women’s national team friendlies against Uzbekistan and Belarus.
At club level, foreign participation has also thinned. Assistants to head coach Dragan Skočić at Tractor S.C., and one assistant to Ricardo Sá Pinto at Esteghlal F.C., have terminated their contracts. Several foreign Esteghlal players who left Iran during the mid-season break have yet to return.
The departures appear driven less by symbolic protest than by risk assessments. Matches continue, but confidence – especially among outsiders – has not been restored.
Tears as a counter-image
One of the most destabilizing moments for the state’s push for normalcy came in a single image: a women’s footballer scoring and then crying. In the visual economy of state messaging, it was the opposite of what is needed. A smile would complete the frame. Tears break it.
Last week, Maryam Mohammadhosseini, a player for the Esteghlal women’s team, did not celebrate after scoring and instead broke down in tears.
The image spread quickly because it showed what the official narrative tries to contain. Athletes can compete while remaining psychologically unsteady. Participation is not the same as emotional recovery. The body registers what the script denies.
Empty stadiums, louder signals
Matches continue, but spectators remain barred from stadiums, extending the same logic of control. The ban reflects authorities’ fear that protest chants and political displays could erupt on live broadcasts.
A match without a crowd may be technically possible, but for many it is drained of meaning. There is an image, but no collective response.
The limits of performative normalcy are even clearer beyond Iran’s borders.
The Asian Football Confederation has ruled that Iranian clubs cannot host certain continental matches at home, moving them to neutral venues. Under the decision, Esteghlal F.C. and Sepahan S.C. will stage Asian Champions League fixtures outside Iran, while Tractor S.C. will play on neutral ground.
If conditions were genuinely stable, those clubs would be allowed to host. A version of “normal” that holds only within domestic media does not withstand external assessment.
A growing list of athletes killed
Rights groups and media reports have documented the deaths of numerous athletes during protests so far, including former beach soccer national team goalkeeper Mohammad Hajipour; karate champion and referee Hassan Ghasemi; boxer Arshia Ahmadpour; mountaineer Sara Behboudi; women’s football assistant referee Sahba Rashtian; youth players Amirhossein Mohammadzadeh and Rebin Moradi; and former Tractor player Mojtaba Tarshiz, who was killed while shielding his wife.
The most recent confirmed case is Ahmad Ramezanzadeh, a catcher for the Iran national baseball team, who was killed after being shot with a handgun in eastern Tehran.
Other confirmed cases include soccer coach Milad Lavasani, futsal figure Amirmohammad Kouhkan, bodybuilder Masoud Zatparvar, taekwondo coach Afshin Mirkiani and arm-wrestling champion Erfan Bozorgi.
These are not the only athletes killed by the Islamic Republic. More names are likely to emerge in the future, as thousands of victims have yet to be identified.
