What do El Salvador, Iran and North Korea have in common? They’re all feeling the heat in the great crypto crash.

The crash of cryptocurrency prices has been well documented, particularly when it comes to retail investors and traders who have lost huge sums of money.

But crypto isn’t only an economic story — and the crash isn’t only hitting individual investors. For countries ranging from El Salvador to North Korea, Venezuela to Iran, cryptocurrencies have also emerged in recent years as a tool for achieving geopolitical goals — goals that are taking a hit along with all the other damage done in the plunge in crypto’s value. Dictators in particular have latched onto crypto for a variety of reasons; in many cases, a relatively new economic and technological system is colliding with something as old as politics.

“What is underneath the hood, I think, is opportunistic people, legislators or politicians looking for revenue,” Yaya J. Fanusie, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former CIA analyst, told Grid. “There’s this sort of alliance right now between the private sector or the tech sector and the politician.”

Read the full story and more from Grid News.