The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) authorized the country's commercial banks and registered exchange houses to use Bitcoin, the world's first cryptocurrency, for the payment of imports.
Iran, one of the countries with the greatest controversy regarding cryptocurrencies, and digital assets, authorized the use of Bitcoin (BTC) for payment of imports of raw materials and other products. According to the report According to Financial Tribune, an information medium specialized in economics, the country's Central Bank will allow commercial banks and exchange houses registered and authorized in Iran to use Bitcoin to pay for their imported products, especially raw materials and electronic products.
Using bitcoins to pay for imports allows the government to escape the sanctions and trade blockades that Iran faces from the United States. However, the Central Bank reported that only bitcoins legally mined on Iranian soil will be authorized to be used in import operations; that is, only those cryptocurrencies mined by miners who are legally registered in Iran.
According to the FT, all the country's commercial banks and authorized currency exchange houses were officially notified with the new regulations; so they can now begin to process and process import payments with BTC.
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Changes in Iran regulations
Allowing the use of bitcoins on imports is something that the Iranian government has been studying for some time. Since 2018, the government had been receiving proposals from its analysts and strategists to adopt cryptocurrencies and digital assets as a way to escape political sanctions.
In October of last year, the News Agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRNA) reported that the Central Bank was analyzing an amendment to modify the existing regulations, regarding cryptocurrencies and digital assets, to allow the use of the market-leading cryptocurrency, and other crypto assets that are mined legally and authorized in the country, to imports of goods and services outside its border.
Mining bitcoins is legal, trading is not
Mining of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the country was legally authorized almost at the end of 2019. The government decided to give legal status to this productive activity in Iranian territory to take advantage of all the electrical surplus produced by its large oil and gas reserves. of gas, and which cannot be exported due to political sanctions.
Thus, it is the miners authorized by the government who take advantage of all of Iran's energy surplus, which is sold at quite cheap rates.
However, despite authorizing legal cryptocurrency mining, the government prohibited the trading of digital assets within its territory. In fact, miners must sell the mined bitcoins, within the authorized limits, to the Central Bank of Iran. At the time, the Iranian Ministry of Energy clarified that each mining farm in the country would be authorized to mine a fixed amount of bitcoins and other crypto assets, depending on the amount of subsidized energy and the mining power they have inside. of blockchain networks.
The Ministry also noted that “miners must supply the mined cryptocurrency directly, and within the authorized limit, to the channels introduced by the CBI”; That is, selling the crypto assets directly to the central bank. Therefore, the mined cryptocurrencies cannot be traded within platforms that offer cryptocurrency services in the country, nor be transferred or exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or digital assets to be deposited on platforms that operate outside Iranian territory.
In July 2020, the CBI authorized Iran's power plants and power plants to legally mine bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies, who must also sell the earned digital assets to the central bank.
Mining under license and months of uncertainty
Although Bitcoin mining is legal in Iran, those cryptocurrency miners who do not have the proper authorizations and licenses from the Central Bank and government authorities cannot operate in the country. So to say that the adoption of cryptocurrencies in this region is growing is something that is still very far from reality.
In recent months, Iran has confiscated a large amount of Bitcoin mining equipment, valued at several hundred thousand dollars, all because the owners were not authorized to mine cryptocurrencies within the territory.
The last of these seizures reported by a local media indicates that the authorities seized some 45.000 ASIC equipment. In addition, some 1.600 unauthorized mining farms have already been forced to close their facilities and disconnect their equipment, as the government believes that these are responsible for the many blackouts and pollution that some cities have suffered.
Given the hasty statements of the Iranian government, several analysts and experts on the subject have focused on denying these assessments, since the energy consumption of the amount of disconnected mining equipment in Iran represents a very small percentage of the operational electrical capacity that exists in the country. In this sense, Ziya Sadr, a cryptocurrency specialist, assured that cryptocurrency miners "have nothing to do with the blackouts" in Iran.
More interest in economic benefit
While other countries see cryptocurrencies as a fundamental piece in their objectives of growing in world leadership, or for the construction of complex financial and economic centers, it seems that Iran's interest in cryptocurrencies is more focused on economic benefit, and in the options that these digital assets offer the country to escape the imposed sanctions, that by the development and innovation that these digital assets represent in the markets, as new disruptive technologies.
Finally, the Eastern nation is joining the initiative of several countries in the world to create their own sovereign digital assets, called CBDC. In the case of Iran, the country is aiming for a digital currency for the Iranian rial, which will help reduce the need for cash in the territory and also help boost commercial and economic exchanges within the nation. As reported According to the FT, Iran could develop a national digital currency to “promote financial and payment services in the national banking industry, at the interbank and microbanking levels.”
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