- Iran is reportedly looking into a national cryptocurrency
- The token will be gold-backed
- The country had previously considered a ban on cryptos, and has banned the use of subsidized electricity for mining
Perhaps one of the biggest stories within the crypto world at the moment is the ongoing saga of the Libra token which is acting as a landmark for large private firms establishing their own cryptocurrencies to mixed responses from various world powers. With all this going on, it is easy to forget that the launching of cryptocurrencies isn’t limited to private organizations as entire countries have created their own cryptocurrency such as the Petro currency launched in Venezuela in 2018. Now it seems that Iran might be joining that list as it was reported this weekend by the Tehran news agency that Iran intends to launch a cryptocurrency that will be backed by gold. This is part of a growing interest from world governments in cryptocurrency as an alternative to fiat currency and other stores of value.
Gold backed stablecoin coming to Iran
According to the reports, the Central Bank of Iran has already approved the issuance of new cryptocurrencies and some word has been given by Shahab Javanmardi, who is the CEO of the Iranian Information and Communication Technology.
According to him, the cryptocurrency will be backed by gold but it will function similar to other cryptocurrencies in that it is designed to maximize the use of Iranian frozen assets and it was reported that the new crypto will be called Paymon.
Mining tariff
While this is certainly an exciting development, the Iranian government has had an interesting history with crypto as earlier this year, some opposition seems to have come towards crypto mining, mostly due to concerns that crypto miners were tapping into the National Grid and using more than their fair share of electricity at a subsidized price. As such it was even threatened that several individuals would be banned from using the National Grid but they have since been working on a new energy tariff specifically for crypto mining.
At one point, the Central Bank of Iran was looking into banning private cryptocurrency and encryption services which is similar to actions taken in China and even though the ban has not been put in place, the legal status of cryptocurrencies within the country is still unclear. While the government is still dealing with crypto miners taking advantage of electricity, a national crypto could work wonders in regulating and regularising the crypt industry within Iran.
