by Emanuel Pietrobon and Elham Makdoum

On the evening of April 13, by launching a vast flock of remotely piloted aircraft and ballistic and cruise missiles in the direction of Israel's borders, Iran broke a balance that had lasted more than 30 years. For it was since 1991 that Israel had not been the target of a missile attack.

While it is true that Tehran's retaliation for the Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus was a débâcle in terms of effectiveness - neutralization rate over 90 percent -, it is equally true that that failure was widely sought, giving Tel Aviv as much as seventy-two hours to prepare for impact, and that the reasons for the subcutaneous purposes of this deliberately contradictory operation were not grasped by the majority.

Between choreography and experiment

Tehran's retaliation for the Israeli blitz on Damascus was what in the jargon of insiders is called a phoned-in, or telegraphed, action, or retaliation agreed upon with the other actors involved. It is a thesis supported by a number of influential analysts, such as Michael Singh (former U.S. National Security Council) and Gregory Brew (Eurasia Group), and one that, more importantly, is supported by a range of evidence:

  • Iran had informed each of the regional players and the United States well in advance of the planned start date and modalities of the attack, giving Israel time to prepare effective measures to contain and neutralize the coming threat;
  • Iran had been quick to declare the retaliation over a few minutes after the flock of drones was launched, setting it up as a self-defense action and conveying an explicit de-escalatory message;
  • Joe Biden's eloquent posturing in the aftermath of the attack, particularly the invitation extended to Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the interception of almost every element of the Iranian attack wave as a victory over Tehran and the warning that Washington would not support any Tel Aviv response on Iranian soil.

In this concerted choreography, everyone won. Washington convinced Tehran to calibrate and coordinate the response to the April 1 raid, centering the goal of preventing the overheating and expansion of the Israeli-Palestinian war. Tel Aviv suffered an attack that did not really jeopardize its national security or reduce the credibility of its deterrent. But it is Tehran, which, under the pretext of demanding the right to revenge on pain of unpredictable escalation - the evergreen lunatic theory - may have brought home the biggest spoils.

The Iranian calculation

Iran's dron-missile attack on Israel was demonstrative in the etymological sense of the adjective. It showed the front of revisionist powers, headed by Russia and China, that the United States fears the scenario of open war with a large rival and is willing to compromise to avert it. It has shown the umma that a single Islamic power has the courage to challenge Israel, moreover by striking it on its own territory, and this will mean greater support even among Sunnis - because the Palestinian issue is the glue that unites all Muslims. It showed friends, aminemies, allies and rivals the potential of the Axis of Resistance - which for the first time, between April 13 and 14, was activated simultaneously. And it proved that the inviolable Iron Dome can be breached - because the missiles not included in the copycat, that is, the ones that were supposed to fall on Nevatim airbase, from which the attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus would have started, went off.

Iran exploited the unrepeatable window of opportunity to maximize the profit from the compromise with the Biden administration, which, already compelled by Russia to siphon off resources from the Indo-Pacific, cannot allow a war between great powers to break out in the Middle East. In the shadow of the failed sham to be fed to the home audience to appease its jingoistic appetites, Tehran has conducted an experiment to explore the reactive and interceptive capabilities, as well as the "piercability," of the Israeli defense shield. Experiment following Ḥamās findings on Iron Dome saturation during the May 2021 mini-war. In preparation for the showdown that, the Iranians are sure, will come one day.

READ ALSO
Forte, autonoma e a sciame: le nuove frontiere dell'Intelligenza Artificiale
Ten to one for Tehran

As Iran unleashed the firestorm in the skies over Israel, the cryptocurrency market was swept up in one of the biggest speculative earthquakes in the last three years. On the night of Friday-Saturday, roughly twenty-four hours before the Iranian attack, the liquidation of leverage positions in bitcoin, but also in other cryptocurrencies, began, which over the weekend would lead to the short selling of $1.5 billion.

Behind the large-scale liquidation that then led to the momentary collapse of the cryptocurrency market on the news of the launch of the first drones and missiles may lie the direction of Iran. Word from well-known industry insiders, such as Ash Crypto, is that it was Iranian crypto-wallets that initiated the giant short selling. Given that Iran is one of the cryptoverse's sovereigns, this reconstruction of events may be more than a rumor.

The possibility for Iran to alter the balance on crypto markets is not speculation: it is reality. Not only is it estimated that 5 percent of all bitcoin is mined annually in Iran, though, adding up the clandestine mining farms that are discovered and regularized each year on Persian soil - roughly three thousand - and those off the records of members of the Axis of Resistance - Ḥamās, Ḥizb Allāh and al-Ḥūthiyyūn are well-known cryptocurrency extractors -, it is certain that the above figure is higher, but blockchain intelligence specialists agree in unison on one thing: Iran has built one of the most sophisticated and impermeable crypto-economies on the planet.

The Iranians use cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions, to finance their military programs, to give sustainability to the Axis of Resistance, and even to finance the import of ordinary goods. Cryptocurrencies are the parallel currency of Tehran and its proxies, who own mining farms, crypto-exchanges, have departments dedicated to operations in the cryptoverse, trade them, use them to wash and hide money, to speculate, and to shop for weapons on the dark web. Like Ḥamās during the preparatory stages of guerrilla warfare in Israel.

Going back to the large liquidation that began on Friday night and continued on Saturday night, it is more than plausible that Tehran shorted many of its bitcoins to recoup its transaction costs. A payback that, if indeed Iran had driven this speculative maneuver, would have been quick and easy: on the eve of the attack, bitcoin stood at seventy-seven thousand dollars, meaning it only took one short to repay three Shahed-136 or Shahed-131 type drones-both with a unit cost of about twenty thousand dollars.

Given the vast portfolio of bitcoin held by Iran - which is the basis for a short selling campaign -, the relatively low cost of the attack - an estimated one hundred million dollars, compared to the billion dollars borne by Israel - and the speculative inclination of the Iranians and the Axis of Resistance, it is more than plausible that rumors about the Iranian role in the collapse of the crypto markets are not just rumors.

emanuel pietrobon
+ post

Geopolitical analyst, foreign policy consultant and author. Graduate in Area and global studies for international cooperation (University of Turin), educated between Italy, Poland, Portugal and Russia. Specialized in hybrid warfare, Latin American issues and post-Soviet space.

elham makdoum
+ post

Expert in crypto-intelligence, blockchain analytics and cryptocurrency geopolitics. She collaborates with various publications. In 2023 she was a speaker at Blockchain Beach, one of the most important Italian events on cryptocurrencies, blockchain and metaverse.