Tehran, Iran, Sept. 4
Trend:
Abolhassan Firouzabadi, the head of the High Council of Cyberspace, said the government is moving to legalize the use of cryptocurrencies in the country.
The policy of the High Council of Cyberspace is to organize the use of cryptocurrencies in the country as the government is moving to use them in the near future in a bid to circumvent the new US sanctions, Firouzabadi said on September 4, Iran’s economic Ibena news agency reported.
Stressing that the final decision has not been made yet, noted that a working group is studying it to establish online exchanges for virtual currencies and mining of virtual currencies.
Iran is preparing the ground to create its own state-issued cryptocurrency in a bid to dodge the returning US sanctions, reports said.
Earlier, Iran’s Directorate for Scientific and Technological Affairs is pressing ahead with creating a digital currency under the sanctions.
“We are seeking to prepare the grounds to use an indigenous currency in Iran,” Alireza Daliri, the deputy for management and investment at the Directorate for Scientific and Technological Affairs, said in later July.
He added that the currency would help the country at the time of sanctions.
So far, the United States government has confiscated 500 Bitcoin from Iranian holder assets, estimated at $5.77 million in purchase value.
The exact reason for the confiscation is unclear, though some speculate it has to do with Iranian bitcoin holders evading imposed US sanctions.
US President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran. The first round of US sanctions on Iran went into effect in August, followed by ones targeting Iran's oil exports in November.
As the US mount pressure on Iran, news is doing the rounds that a major Iranian hotel booking website is accepting crypto payments to avoid the incoming sanctions upon them.
It seems that cryptocurrency could be the savior of the Iranian hotel and tourism business. However, the current legal ban on cryptocurrencies in Iran has made it difficult for them to find an attorney to take on the issue.
Reports are saying that Iran plans to remove the ban and is no longer opposed to the use of digital currency trading. Crypto payments could now be a very viable alternative to centrally-backed fiat cash in the wake of the newly imposed sanctions.