Iran Unchained: How the Islamic Republic Holds Power and Why Protests Keep Returning | Sana Ebrahimi & Ameen Soleimani
Iran is a real-world stress test of freedom: the Islamic Republic is built to outlast dissent. In this special Iran Unchained episode, David talks with Sana Ebrahimi and Amin Soleimani about the regime’s control stack, including unelected theocracy, street-level coercion, corruption as governance, and propaganda that reaches far beyond Iran’s borders.
They unpack gender apartheid, internet blackouts during uprisings, why protests keep returning, and what the West gets wrong about “intervention” and regional stability.
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
1:21 “How does it feel to be Iranian right now?”
3:39 Sana’s background: Tehran → U.S., and a life shaped by protests
4:38 What is the Iranian regime and what does it want?
9:51 What an Ayatollah is and how that status concentrates power
16:46 Promises vs reality: revolutionary slogans, economic collapse, and control loops
24:15 1979’s alliance, the Marxists, and the purge that followed
34:53 Repression as a system: arrests, torture, and fear as governance
39:15 “Let this land burn”: why the regime doesn’t step down
41:23 Gender apartheid, Mahsa Amini and the spark that keeps reigniting protests
51:58 Protest math: why people still return to the streets
55:18 The internet blackout playbook
1:02:52 “Regime apologists” abroad: media, think tanks, and narrative capture
1:07:17 Why the West gets confused: Palestine politics and cognitive dissonance
1:17:56 Western intervention: “Not Iraq, not Afghanistan”
1:28:57 The diaspora, brain drain, and what a free Iran could unlock
1:31:40 What they’re hoping for next and how to help
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RESOURCES
Ameen Soleimani
https://x.com/ameensol
Sana Ebrahimi
https://x.com/__Injaneb96
Iran Unchained fundraiser
https://www.iranunchained.com/
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
Building A Better Ponzi with Ameen Soleimani | Layer Zero
Ameen Soleimani is the Founder and CEO of SpankChain, the co-creator of MolochDAO, and the co-founder of Reflexer Labs, which created RAI.
David and Ameen chat about Moloch, coordination, DAOs, and what DAOs can do for both Ethereum and the broader world. Additionally, they get into Ameen’s recent fight against the Federal Reserve.
This is a mind-expanding discussion that you won’t want to miss. Enjoy!
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----- Topics Covered
0:00 Intro 5:25 Ameen’s Crypto Perch 7:22 Ethereum’s Culture 9:55 Ameen’s Activity in the Space 14:03 Moloch Meme’s Origin 22:03 Moloch DAO & PTSD(AO) 31:31 Ability to Freely Exit 35:20 Organizational Change 42:55 Slaying Moloch 50:25 Global Settlement Layer 54:20 Sticks vs. Carrots 59:18 RAI, the Fed, Ponzis, & the Dollar 1:10:32 Thomas Jefferson & Slavery 1:15:34 Dollar Printing Gone Wrong 1:18:00 Invading Iraq 1:19:50 Ignoring, Overreacting & the Dollar 1:27:18 How Ethereum Fixes Things 1:34:11 Closing
------ Resources:
Ameen Soleimani https://twitter.com/ameensol
----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
AMA with Stefan Ionescu of Reflexer Labs
Stefan Ionescu is a Founder of Reflexer Labs, the team behind the RAI stablecoin (or is it fair to even call it a stablecoin? Tune in to find out!)
Like all our AMAs, the interview is live and incorporates questions from our Inner Circle Discord and live YouTube Chat. These are hosted the 2nd and 4th Wednesday each month, so mark your calendars, tune in, and ask questions! ------ 🚀 SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/ 🎙️ SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST: http://podcast.banklesshq.com/ 🎖 CLAIM YOUR BADGE: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/-guide-2-using-the-bankless-badge ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:
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------ Resources:
Reflexer Labs: https://reflexer.finance/
Stefan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stefan__ionescu?s=20
------ This Week on Bankless:
🏴 SotN w/ Cryptex & Element (4/13: https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/sotn-42-ethereum-devs-building-defi ⚒️ How to Use dYdX (4/13): https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/how-to-trade-on-the-dydx-rollup 📈 Market Monday (4/12): https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/coinbase-week-market-monday 🎙️Podcast w/ Hester Peirce (4/12): https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/-the-sec-and-defi-hester-peirce 🧢 Weekly Action Recap (4/10): https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/the-coinbase-tsunami-weekly-recap 🗞️ Weekly Rollup (4/9): https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/-rollup-coinbase-ipo-fei-protocol
----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/bankless-disclosures
"We Were Idiots and We Were Poor; Then From Mid 2020 to Now, Suddenly, We're Right: " Ameen Soleimani
In this week’s episode I interview Ameen Soleimani, one of the most prolific builders in Ethereum. He’s the CEO of SpankChain, a blockchain-based adult entertainment platform, the co-creator of MolochDAO, a DAO to fund Ethereum projects, and the co-founder of Reflexer Labs, which created RAI, a purely ether-backed stablecoin.
We talk about the need of a purely ETH -backed stablecoin, and how RAI is so cypherpunk it’s not only not backed by fiat, but it’s also not pegged to the dollar, it’s only pegged to itself, and stabilized by its own algorithm. It’s a pretty radical experiment and Ameen has very high hopes for it: The goal is for Rai to become a global reserve currency.
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33 - Slaying Moloch | Ameen Soleimani & Kevin Owocki
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Moloch is the god of human coordination failure; the reason why we can't have nice things; the embodiment of the Prisoners Dilemma. The story of humanity is a never-ending iterative process of discovering new tools and mechanisms to coordinate against Moloch.
Is Ethereum the Sword that Humanity needs to finally slay Moloch? Why is Ethereum different than previous instances of coordination mechanisms, such as Religion or the Nation-State.
Tune in to this extremely important episode, and join the army of coordinators to help Slay Moloch!
Meditations on Moloch blog post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ This is the original source of information which all Moloch-related conversation spawns from
Read aloud on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeohwQls2GE&t=5660s
David's Bankless Piece: Ethereum: Moloch Slayer https://bankless.substack.com/p/ethereum-slayer-of-moloch-
Gitcoin & MolochDAO https://gitcoin.co/hackathon/gitxchange2/?tab=hackathon:16 https://gitcoin.co/grants/238/bankless?tab=description https://www.molochdao.com/
POV Crypto Podcast on MolochDAO origins w/ Ameen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oU5jjyHWxE&t=4s
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Subscribe to the Bankless newsletter program http://bankless.substack.com/ Visit the official Bankless website for resources http://banklesshq.com/ Follow Bankless on Twitter https://twitter.com/BanklessHQ Follow Ryan on Twitter https://twitter.com/ryansadams Follow David on Twitter https://twitter.com/TrustlessState Follow Lucas on Twitter https://twitter.com/0x_Lucas ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time we may add links in this channel to products we use. We may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. We'll always disclose when this is the case.
MolochDAO: Could This Decentralized Autonomous Organization Help Ethereum Scale Faster? - Ep.111
Ameen Soleimani, CEO of Spankchain, comes on the show to discuss his latest effort to fund Ethereum development through the decentralized autonomous organization MolochDAO. He describes how it works, plus we cover competition in the smart contract space and whether we're seeing the emergence of Ethereum maximalism.
Full show notes are back on Forbes.com! See the full recap of this week's recap of the episode at http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2019/03/18/how-could-ethereum-development-be-funded-perhaps-through-this-decentralized-autonomous-organization/.
Thank you to our sponsor!
CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained
Episode links:
MolochDAO website: MolochDAO.com
MolochDAO on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MolochDAO
MolochDAO white paper: https://github.com/MolochVentures/Whitepaper/blob/master/Whitepaper.pdf
Moloch Github: https://github.com/molochventures/moloch
State of Ethereum 2.0 report: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PS0k9MaKPdPwEw3Uh9rq7USjq7LcSpT6ICQUXRij4YE/edit#heading=h.kdbgcss2wsc
Ameen's tweet storm on MolochDAO: https://twitter.com/ameensol/status/1084652403889065989?s=19
MolochDAO tweetstorm with update on members, etc.: https://twitter.com/MolochDAO/status/1100516720563806209?s=19
MolochDAO presentation at ETHDenver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abTRJZcmPwI
Post by Dino Mark, Vlad Zamfir and Emin Gun Sirer, A Call for a Temporary Moratorium on the DAO: http://hackingdistributed.com/2016/05/27/dao-call-for-moratorium/
Ameen on the importance of ETH price: https://twitter.com/ameensol/status/1090319128810815489
Ryan Zurrer's position on ether fund recovery: https://medium.com/@rzurrer/evolution-dogma-a-proposed-path-towards-ether-fund-recovery-9810f213e8ee
r/Ethereum decision on moderators: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/azyqdu/a_statement_call_for_discussion_from_some_of_the/
Ameen on the timeframe for developing Ethereum 2.0 relative to development on potentially competitive chains like Polkadot: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/ajc9ip/ama_we_are_the_eth_20_research_team/eewscyf/
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