Since the 2012 sanctions that dis-embedded the Iranian economy from global markets, contraband commerce has become an explosive issue in Iran. Increasingly Iranians came to regard sanctions as enforced by both international powers and their own state officials, who criminalized certain kinds of cross-border trade, but not others. Although Iranian state actors distinguish between the trader—praised for contributing to the economy—and the traitor—denounced for undermining its integrity—what both unites and blurs the line between them is their shared struggle with a devaluing currency that some Iranians call nuclear. This article examines the “nuclear rial” by extending insights from anthropological scholarship on money to the study of sanctions to advance a dynamic understanding of currency. Studying Iranian trade in gold proves productive for understanding how people negotiate the effects of sanctions in an unevenly financialized world. At stake in the negotiations is a conditional articulation of monetary value that relies on contingent conversions between commodities and currencies and among currencies.

自 2012 年制裁使伊朗经济脱离全球市场以来，走私贸易已成为伊朗的一个爆炸性问题。越来越多的伊朗人开始认为制裁是由国际大国和他们自己的国家官员实施的，他们将某些类型的跨境贸易定为刑事犯罪，但对其他类型的贸易则没有定罪。尽管伊朗国家行为者区分了贸易商（因对经济做出贡献而受到称赞）和叛徒（因破坏其完整性而受到谴责），但使他们团结起来并模糊了界限的是他们与一些伊朗人称之为核贬值的货币的共同斗争。本文通过将人类学关于货币的研究的见解扩展到制裁研究来促进对货币的动态理解，从而检验“核里亚尔”。研究伊朗的黄金贸易对于理解人们如何在一个金融化不平衡的世界中谈判制裁的影响很有成效。谈判中的利害攸关的是货币价值的有条件表达，它依赖于商品和货币之间以及货币之间的偶然转换。