Few things I learned recently: Iran is cut off from all international banking, wire transfer, SWIFT etc. This means Iran must pay by hard cold cash for everything. Sometime cash is sent in shipping container! Iran had few countries helping for export import like Russia, North Korea and few 3rd world countries. Recently Trump administrators have tighten up screw so much on this that any company found to be doing transactions is also then cut off from International banking system. US now tracks all ships going around Iran, runs audits on them and enforces sanctions. Countries like Saudi Arabia is also top enemy of Iran which puts additional pressure on other countries for sanctions. I can’t imagine how average tech savvy person would be able to survive in Iran.