'Hamster' crypto craze has taken Iran. It highlights economic malaise ahead of presidential election

abcnews.go.com:

Cab drivers and bikers at red lights in June in Tehran tap away furiously on their mobile phones, ignoring police officers

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Cab drivers and bikers tap away furiously on their mobile phones as they wait at red lights in the Iranian capital during an early June heatwave. Some pedestrians in Tehran are doing the same. They all believe they could get rich.

The object of their rapt attention? The “Hamster Kombat” app.

A wider crypto craze aside, the app's rise in Iran highlights a harsher truth facing the Islamic Republic ahead of Friday's presidential election to replace late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May: an economy hobbled by Western sanctions, stubbornly high inflation and a lack of jobs.

Even as presidential candidates make promises about restoring the country’s economy, Iranians, who have been hearing for years about bitcoin, are now piling into this app out of sheer hope it might one day pay off — without knowing much about who is behind it.

“It's a sign of being desperate, honestly,” said Amir Rashidi, the director of digital rights and security at the Miaan Group who is an expert on Iran. It's about “trying to hang on to anything you have a tiny hope that might some day turn to something valuable.”

Those able to divest from holdings in Iran's beleaguered currency, the rial, have purchased property, art, vehicles, precious metals and other hard assets since the collapse of Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

At the time of the deal, the exchange rate was 32,000 rials to $1. Today, it's nearing 580,000 rials to the dollar — and many have found the value of their bank accounts, retirement funds and other holdings gouged by years of rapid