By
Godfrey Benjamin
December 6th, 2022
Iran is planning to develop its own digital currency as a solution to overcome new economic sanctions introduced by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Iran as well as a number of other countries of the world is considering a wide range of opportunities to bypass the economic consequences of the US sanctions that were announced some months ago and are expected to take place later this year.
According to local media, the Iranian Directorate for Scientific and Technological Affairs of the Presidential Office is planning to launch a domestic digital currency as a solution to get over new economic sanctions. Development of this indigenous cryptocurrency has been already included into the agenda of the Directorate.
Making an announcement about their new initiative, the Directorate’s deputy for management and investment affairs Alireza Daliri explained that today a lot of Iranian knowledge-based organizations in collaboration with the Central Bank of Iran are ready to create the country’s digital currency. Nevertheless, all testing and preparatory procedures will take some time.
“We are trying to prepare the grounds to use a domestic digital currency in the country. This currency would facilitate the transfer of money (to and from) anywhere in the world. Besides, it can help us at the time of sanctions,” said Daliri.
Earlier, it has been already revealed that an experimental model version of a national cryptocurrency was developed. It has become known after the news about the ban imposed by the country’s Central Bank on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Such a decision was explained by the fact that this type of assets is often used for money-laundering.
At that time, Iranian Information and Communications Technology Ministry came to a conclusion that the national cryptocurrency could help the country to overcome sanctions, as cryptos are not under the control of the US financial regulatory body.
In May, Donald Trump decided to withdraw his country from the nuclear agreement with Iran signed in 2015. He also announced his plans to re-impose the sanctions that were ceased by the agreement.
Under the sanctions that will come into force in August and in November, Iran will be deprived of an opportunity to buy US dollars and there will be some restrictions over purchases of crude oil from the country and investments into its oil sector.
Currently, the Iranian Directorate for Scientific and Technological Affairs is working on integration of blockchain technology with the country’s Central bank with a view to implement a cryptocurrency across the local commercial banks.
This decision fully corresponds to ongoing support of the Iranian government provided for the development of blockchain technology and cryptos.
Nevertheless, Iran is not the first country that decided to launch its own crypto. Among other countries developing their national digital currencies stand Russia, Iceland and Venezuela with its oil-backed “petro” cryptocurrency which was also launched as a reaction to the U.S. sanctions.
