IRAN COULD SOON UNVEIL ITS OWN COIN

Iran may be about to reveal its official cryptocurrency backed by the state at the Electronic Banking and Payment Systems conference in Tehran this week. This is reported by the local news agency in English, Al Jazeera , in a publication on Sunday, January 27.

As is known, the United States has imposed new sanctions on Iran since last November. Before this, the eastern country would have glimpsed its plans to start using financial tools based on blockchain technology, in order to prevent these restrictions from affecting its economic development as a country.

At that time it was a digital currency issued by the central bank, which are called CBDC according to acronyms in English, which would be supported by rials. In addition, it was thought that Tehran would also form an alternative to the popular SWIFT, a payment system based in Belgium to which several Iranian banks do not have access.

Countries excluded from SWIFT are limited when it comes to paying imports or receiving export payments, which forces them to resort to alternative methods.

Islamic countries seek to issue a cryptocurrency for all Muslim nations
It is not yet known if the adoption of such cryptocurrency will be given on a large scale, however, for many it is almost a fact that it will be used for consumer payments. Regarding this, Al Jazeera Yashar Rashedi, a blockchain developer of the Iranian firm Radfa, has acknowledged that the fact of centralization makes it certainly different from bitcoin, but harmless:

"They certainly can not replace the likes of bitcoin because of its centralized nature, but its existence is harmless."

He added that:

"Even when [CBDCs] never find widespread daily use among the general public, they may offer some new features to new companies and developers who had to work with centralized banking APIs before them."

Iran, with Russia, Marshall Islands and others, is part of the list of countries considering the launch of centralized digital currencies.