Who is Farhad Moghadamsalimi? Full biography, career history and achievements

Biography

Childhood in south Tehran

Farhad Moghadam Salimi was born in Shahrak-e Sizdah Aban, near the city of Rey, in one of the southernmost parts of Tehran, and lived there until he entered university. He was six years old when he lost his father in 1978. Two years later his younger brother also died, and the family of five became a family of three: his mother, his elder brother and Farhad.

Throughout his school years, although he was a very good student, he worked to help his mother with the household expenses. He sold baklava, grilled corn and ice lollies, worked in his maternal uncles’ gas-lamp workshop, and was employed at the Arasteh electric-heater factory near their home. Before he ever had a workshop of his own, he had worked steadily for years in production workshops and factories.

University and his first factory

He was admitted to the mechanical engineering programme of the University of Tehran, ranked 12th in the national university entrance examination (Konkur). His reason for choosing it was simple: it was the nearest university to home. The commute took two bus tickets, at one toman each, and even that sum counted for the family.

In 1990, at the age of eighteen and in the very days of his admission to university, he sold the family home and, with great difficulty, set up the “Pishrogam” production workshop in the Saleh-Abad industrial estate. Pishrogam made stands for floodlights and desk lamps. The workshop’s distinctive flexible gooseneck arm for desk lamps was made with a method that was partly his own invention, and the design received a ranking at the Kharazmi Festival. He had promised his mother he would give the house back within a year.

The severe inflation of those years wiped out the rial capital raised from the sale of the house, and production made no profit. Around 1993 the workshop went completely bankrupt, leaving him with debts and with a sense of shame before his mother.

Years of work, and the house returned

After the bankruptcy he continued his studies and for years worked as a labourer in a shoemaking workshop alongside his brother Davoud. Around 2001 he met Dr Amir-Abbas Kani, then head of the Rahbord brokerage, who had returned to Iran under a programme inviting expatriate talent home. That acquaintance opened his way into the stock exchange. Together they set up the Market Research Centre at the Rahbord brokerage, on Hafez Street in Tehran, opposite the Securities and Exchange Organization. Under Dr Kani’s academic supervision, Farhad Moghadamsalimi became one of the early instructors of technical analysis at the Tehran Stock Exchange. In 2002 they published technical-analysis tables for Tehran Stock Exchange shares in the Donya-e-Eqtesad newspaper. This was new at the time and attracted wide attention.

In 2003 he met Marzieh, and they married in 2004. About twelve years after the house had been sold, and after years of tireless work day and night, he was able, with the help of Marzieh, to whom he had recently become engaged, to buy the house back and return it to his mother.

Farhad Exchange

In 2004 he started a Yahoo group for market analysis. The group gained a wider audience day by day and, in response to market demand, gradually took the name “Farhad Exchange”. In 2009 the group became the website farhadexchange.com. Farhad Exchange was a platform for exchanging electronic currencies between users and was regarded as one of the early fully automated exchanges in Iran.

Bitcoin appeared in that same year, 2009, but at the time it was hardly traded. The common electronic currencies of that period, before the rise of Bitcoin, were e-gold, c-gold, WebMoney, Perfect Money and Liberty Reserve. Working with these currencies was legal and commonplace in its time. Around 2012 and 2013 Bitcoin was also added to Farhad Exchange’s list of currencies, and the business quickly became one of the largest exchanges in Iran at that time.

The buying and selling of the various instruments in this business was always carried out in accordance with the laws of the time, and wherever an instrument was declared legally prohibited, activity with it was stopped.

Cooperation with WebMoney

From 2009 to 2019 Farhad Moghadamsalimi was the official representative of WebMoney in Iran. His role was that of a “registrar” for issuing the WebMoney identity certificate (Personal Passport). That is, he reviewed the documents of WebMoney account holders and verified their identity. This representation did not involve buying or selling WebMoney or carrying out transactions for users.
This cooperation ended in 2019, and he has had no activity in WebMoney since then.
Today the use of WebMoney is prohibited in many countries, including Iran, Turkey and European countries. In practice, WebMoney no longer has any use in exchange outside Russia.

His role with WebMoney (2009–2019) was limited to identity verification as registrar for the Personal Passport. It involved no buying or selling and no transactions for users, and it ended in 2019.

From Farhad Exchange to efex.pro

Farhad Exchange operated under that name until 2019. After that it continued under the new brand efex.pro, managed by the team inside Iran. He remains one of the shareholders of efex.pro and takes part in its major decisions; the day-to-day running of the business is the responsibility of the team inside Iran. efex.pro operates in accordance with the regulations of the Central Bank of Iran, carries out full identity verification of its users, and strives to comply not only with domestic law but also with international anti-money-laundering requirements, and to keep away, as far as possible, from any funds that would be problematic in the view of international bodies. His capital in Turkey was transferred to Turkey in 2018 from the income earned from his investments and activities in Iran, through legal channels and under the supervision of his Turkish financial advisor, and the related taxes were paid. Since then he has transferred no funds between Iran and Turkey; since 2019 he has withdrawn no funds from this business, and his assets in Iran have remained there.

Life in Izmir

Since 2019 Farhad Moghadam Salimi has lived with his family in Izmir, Turkey. In this city he founded Ege Money together with his wife Marzieh and two other partners; the company is his main work today and is described in the next section.

Ege Money: from fintech to investment and artificial intelligence

Founding and management

Ege Money was registered in Izmir on 6 March 2020. Its founders are Farhad Moghadamsalimi, Marzieh Moghadam Salimi, Seyed Reza Tabatabaie and Golshad Tabatabaie. Today the company’s only shareholders are Farhad Moghadamsalimi and his wife Marzieh Moghadam Salimi; the two other partners hold no shares in it. The company is managed today by Farhad Moghadam Salimi and his wife Marzieh. His title at the company is Senior General Manager.

The fintech and crypto-asset period (2020 to April 2025)

In its first years Ege Money operated as a fintech company. The egemoney.com platform enabled the buying and selling of crypto assets against Turkish lira and, alongside this, offered users market-analysis tools, including Elliott Wave analysis and a Telegram analysis bot, as well as the educational content of the “Ege Money Academy”. At the peak of this period the company’s team reached about 40 people.

Three flagship projects took shape at Ege Money during this period:

• Real-world asset tokenisation (RWA): The EgeMoney RWA programme was designed for the digital representation of real estate in Turkey. After verification of title deeds and valuation by licensed real-estate appraisers, each property was represented by an NFT collection divisible into up to 499 fractional shares (F-NFT), and valuations were updated at regular intervals.
• The EGEM token: This was the unit of the programme and was built on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Its value was linked to the value of the real estate brought into the system. Its white paper was published in autumn 2024.
• EgeBlock: This was the company’s blockchain infrastructure, on which the Ege Money platform ran, and it provided enterprise-level blockchain services, including wallets and blockchain addresses.

All of these activities were carried out within the framework of Turkish regulations and came to an end when the company’s crypto-asset services ended in April 2025.

After the new Turkish Capital Markets Law was adopted, Ege Money was included in the temporary list of crypto-asset service providers of the Capital Markets Board of Turkey (SPK); it then voluntarily withdrew from continuing this activity. The provision of crypto-asset services ended in April 2025, and at its meeting of 17 July 2025 the SPK Board moved the company to the list of companies in liquidation of this activity. In the same month the company’s name and field of activity were also amended. Ege Money now has no activity whatsoever in the field of crypto assets in Turkey.

After the end of this period, the company’s team was reduced in line with its new activity.

Registration details:

• Current registered name: Ege Money Investment Yazılım A.Ş. (from October 2024 to July 2025, during the crypto-asset period, it was registered as Ege Money Kripto Varlık Alım Satım Platformu A.Ş.; the return to the current name was published in the Turkish Trade Registry Gazette of 30 July 2025, issue no. 11382)
• Date of incorporation: 6 March 2020
• MERSIS number: 0325107235900001; trade registry number: 217215
• Address: Yalı Mah. 6523 Sk. No:32 B/601, Karşıyaka, Izmir, Turkey
• Company notice on the liquidation process (15 April 2025): EgeMoney Tasfiye Süreci Hakkında Merak Edilenler
• Official sources: SPK list of companies in liquidation and registration record at GLEIF

Ege Money today

Ege Money is active today in investment and software. The company works only with its own capital, which belongs to its shareholders, and accepts no capital or funds from any customer or third party.

Ege Money works only with its shareholders’ own capital and accepts no capital or funds from any customer or third party.

Ege Money’s activity today has two parts:

• Investment: The company invests its own capital on Borsa İstanbul.
• Software: Ege Money develops stock-market analysis software, particularly for US equities. Its newest project is egemoney.ai, an artificial-intelligence-based system for analysing stock markets. At present the system is a private, internal tool to which only the company’s management has access, and it is used to support the company’s own investment decisions. Through it, Ege Money neither receives funds from anyone nor manages anyone else’s portfolio.

Ege Money has sponsored the Göztepe women’s volleyball team in the 2021–2022 season and the Halcyons American football team. The company also holds the Turkish translation and publication rights to the book “The Fiat Standard” by Saifedean Ammous.

Education

• BSc in Mechanical Engineering, University of Tehran (admitted in 1990, ranked 12th in the national entrance examination)
• MSc in Financial Mathematics, Sharif University of Technology (approximately 1995 to 1997)
• Executive programme certificate, “Blockchain Technologies: Business Innovation and Application”, MIT Sloan School of Management, issued on 17 December 2019, certificate ID 1519164747, in the name of Farhad Moghadamsalimi. Certificate verification link

His university degrees were obtained about thirty years ago and are not directly related to his field of work today. His professional standing rests above all on practical experience in industry, the capital markets and electronic exchange.

Educational and analytical work

Since 2013 Farhad Moghadamsalimi has published educational content on blockchain in Persian. The “Farhad Moghadamsalimi Crypto School” contains more than 370 educational articles. Every week he publishes analysis of global markets, including cryptocurrencies, the US dollar index, metals and equities, in three languages, Persian, English and Turkish, on farhadsalimi.com and egemoney.com.

Financial work, risk and transparency

Work in the financial markets always carries its own risks, and activity in the field of crypto assets increases these risks. In today’s world, being Iranian is also regarded by many financial institutions as a separate risk factor. Some banks and financial institutions treat Iranian nationality in itself as a sign of a possible connection with the government of Iran or with illegal activity. Farhad Moghadam Salimi recognises this reality and does not hide it.

He holds dual Iranian and Turkish citizenship and has assets in both countries. His capital in Turkey was transferred in 2018 from the income earned from his investments and activities in Iran, legally and under the supervision of a Turkish financial advisor, and the related taxes were paid. Since then no funds have been transferred between the two countries, and his assets in Iran have remained there. He is a tax resident of Turkey and pays his taxes in Turkey. At present he personally has neither a bank account nor a tax file in Iran; his assets in Iran are personal real estate and his shares in efex.pro. efex.pro has its own tax file and corporate bank accounts; he receives no income from this company, and the company’s income is spent on its own research and development. During his life in Turkey, his income has come from his investments in Turkey and from Ege Money, a company that now works only with its shareholders’ own capital and accepts no capital from any customer or third party. One of his constant concerns has been to act with full transparency and correctness, in accordance with the laws of his country of residence and with international regulations. This has not been an easy path, but he has made every effort to adhere to it.

His capital was transferred to Turkey once, in 2018: legally, under the supervision of a Turkish financial advisor, with the related taxes paid. No funds have moved between Iran and Turkey since. He is a tax resident of Turkey and pays his taxes there.

In his entire life, Farhad Moghadamsalimi has not worked a single day in any governmental, state or military body of Iran. He was exempted from compulsory military service and did not serve. Neither he nor efex.pro has had any activity, cooperation, receipts or payments with governmental or state bodies of Iran or with sanctioned persons or entities.

He has never worked a single day for any governmental, state or military body of Iran. Neither he nor efex.pro has had any dealings with Iranian state bodies or with sanctioned persons or entities.

During its crypto-asset period, Ege Money was supervised by the Capital Markets Board of Turkey (SPK) and was subject to the anti-money-laundering requirements of Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK). The company had a compliance officer (Uyum Görevlisi) formally registered with MASAK, and the required reports, including suspicious transaction reports, were submitted to MASAK as required by law.

In a civil case between Farhad Moghadamsalimi and a Turkish bank, the court-appointed expert found no suspicious transactions in the accounts examined. In response to the court’s enquiry, MASAK also stated that its records contained no request or decision to suspend transactions concerning him. Since 2019, living and working in Turkey, he has always endeavoured not to do anything that might carry even a suggestion of wrongdoing, whether in crypto assets or in other financial activities.

Transparency and compliance

• The buying and selling of the various instruments in his businesses has always been carried out in accordance with the laws of the time, and wherever an instrument was declared legally prohibited, activity with it was stopped.
• His role with WebMoney was limited to identity verification (registrar for the Personal Passport) and ended in 2019.
• He is one of the shareholders of efex.pro and takes part in its major decisions. Day-to-day management is the responsibility of the team inside Iran, and since 2019 he has withdrawn no funds from this business.
• He is a tax resident of Turkey and pays his taxes in Turkey. At present he personally has no bank account or tax file in Iran and receives no income from efex.pro.
• His capital in Turkey was transferred in 2018, legally, under the supervision of a Turkish financial advisor and with the related taxes paid. Since then he has transferred no funds between Iran and Turkey.
• He has never worked in any governmental, state or military body of Iran. Neither he nor efex.pro has had any receipts or payments with Iranian state bodies or with sanctioned persons or entities.
• Neither Farhad Moghadam Salimi nor efex.pro appears on the OFAC, European Union or United Nations sanctions lists. This was confirmed on 12 November 2026 by checking the official versions of these lists. The names Farhad Exchange and Ege Money also do not appear on these lists or on the UK Sanctions List.

Court case

Between January 2019 and March 2020 (Dey 1397 to Esfand 1398), Mohammad Jorjandi, manager of the Webamooz website, published material against Farhad Moghadamsalimi in several waves: first accusing him of money laundering, then of fraud and a Ponzi scheme concerning the Bitroleum token. Farhad Moghadamsalimi himself filed a complaint in court. These accusations were rejected in the courts of Iran, and Mohammad Jorjandi was convicted by the judicial authorities of publishing falsehoods and insult. The first-instance verdict was issued in August 2021 and became final in 2023. To this day, Farhad Moghadam Salimi has no criminal record in either Iran or Turkey; that is, he has not been convicted of any offence by any judicial authority, and no criminal case has been brought against him.

Farhad Moghadamsalimi has no criminal record in either Iran or Turkey.

The full texts are available on these pages:

• Official response to the allegations
• Court ruling in the Jorjandi case
• Official statement on the Bitroleum token project

Frequently asked questions

Official channels

• Personal website: farhadsalimi.com
• Ege Money: egemoney.com, telephone +90 232 203 03 30
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/farhadmsalimi
• X: @farhadmosalimi
• YouTube: @FarhadMoghadamsalimi
• Medium: farhad-moghadamsalimi.medium.com
• Virgool: virgool.io/@farhadmsalimi
• Wikidata: Q139382999
• Official email for banks and media: [email protected]

Last updated: 12 November 2026