As the CTO of a local exchange in Iran, I can confirm that many average people here are using cryptocurrencies for many reasons including countering inflation. We even have farmers and other low-tech workers using our platform. Buying USD is not that easy here and many people simply use an exchange to buy and save crypto, without needing to do any on-chain transaction at all. Many use crypto when local stock market is not doing good for having profit on their normal savings. Even a non-trivial percent of our users identify themselves as full-time traders. Additionally because of US sanctions many are using crypto to transfer funds to their relatives over the borders, buy games/VPS/VPN/etc, receive remote salaries, or even accept donations for completing GitHub issues.
The local or the US government may oppose some of these actions and consider it illegal, but many normal people just use crypto to have a better life regardless, using their hard-earned money, for normal savings or completely ethical personal financial purposes. Those who want to launder money or evade taxes already had access to more efficient ways and presumably are still using them.
The local or the US government may oppose some of these actions and consider it illegal, but many normal people just use crypto to have a better life regardless, using their hard-earned money, for normal savings or completely ethical personal financial purposes. Those who want to launder money or evade taxes already had access to more efficient ways and presumably are still using them.