Iran to Issue Its Own Cryptocurrency?

According to Iran’s Deputy Minister of ICT, the ministry is ready to collaborate with the Central Bank of Iran and the National Informatics Corporation to prepare the facilities for local FinTech companies working on cryptocurrencies.

As Nasrollah Jahangard has stated, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology has announced its readiness to implement cryptocurrencies in the country through a plan of action with the Central Bank of Iran.

“Fortunately, the blockchain technology which is a platform for cryptocurrencies exists in Iran and we are currently studying and doing research on this matter,” said Jahangard as reported by the Monetary and Banking Research Institute. “Cryptocurrencies have been designed and are being exchanged among people for around a decade now and if it is neglected in the Iranian economy, it will certainly cause damages,” he added.

Related: Central Bank of Iran Plans to Regulate Virtual Currencies in 2018

Nasrollah Jahangard who’s also the Head of Information Technology Organization of Iran added that the Ministry is ready to make a hub and an accelerator with the help of the National Informatics Corporation (NIC) for companies raising fund through ICOs and FinTechs working on cryptocurrencies.

Issuing a local cryptocurrency, a cryptocurrency consortium with specific countries and regulating the already established cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are the three topics which are under the review by the ICT Ministry according to Jahangard.

Currently, some countries have issued their national state-owned digital currency and many are exploring the possibility, according to FX Empire. Ecuador, China, Senegal, Singapore, Tunisia and Russia have issued their own cryptocurrencies and other countries such as England, Sweden, Japan and Palestine may soon be added to this list. Aside from enabling the governments to track the transactions, these national cryptocurrencies would bring a new source of revenue for the governments since tax could be implemented on the transactions.

Last month the Head of the Securities and Exchange Organization, banned the brokerages of trading bitcoins and emphasized that this organization is still investigating bitcoin’s entrance to the national economy. Although we’ve been hearing a lot about regulating cryptocurrencies in Iran, up until now we haven’t seen any practical actions. Trading bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not against the law in Iran, but the Iranian authorities have expressed their concerns about investing large amounts of money into this digital asset.