Iran’s New State-Backed Cryptocurrency: To Bust U.S Sanctions, They Finally Accepted The Technology

The National Cyberspace Center of Iran has long revealed that the draft of the state-backed crypto and blockchain project is ready.

Reports indicate that the project of the national digital currency was developed on the instructions from the President of Iran himself, Hassan Rouhani.

The deputy director in power of drafting regulations for Iran’s Supreme Cyberspace Council, Saeed Mahdiyoun, has revealed to local news agency IBENA that the idea of introducing a national cryptocurrency for Iran is actively pursued by Iran’s cyberspace authority.

Until the meeting that was held in Iran which was just a few days ago about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies were banned. Cryptocurrency operations were banned by credit institutions and Iranian banks, following the money laundering concerns that were first raised in December 2017. But now, they lifted their ban, and it seems like they are slowly moving in favor of cryptocurrencies and decentralization.

As mentioned above, Iran has confirmed that they are working on creating their own state-issued token. They want to implement cryptocurrency into their economic system mainly to avoid the upcoming U.S. sanctions imposed on them, as well as to “facilitate the transfer of money” to and from “anywhere in the world.”

Iran authorities are looking at blockchain technology, including a complete ban on acquiring USD that was enacted last year’s early August.

We also saw a very identical case back in February of 2018, in Venezuela, whose government introduced Petro, the first national cryptocurrency, in order to circumvent challenges within the country.

The United States government have introduced a bill to levy further sanctions on Iranian financial institutions and to stop them from developing their own national digital currency.

In a bid to combat terrorism-related activities and money laundering, the “Blocking Iran Illicit Finance Act” bill is to stop the development and use of their own national digital cryptocurrency and sanctions Iranian financial sector.

The act prohibits explicitly financing, transactions, or other dealings related to an Iranian digital currency, and would also introduce sanctions on foreign individuals engaged in the sale, supply, holding or transfer of the digital cryptocurrency.

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