Iran’s minister of communications and information technology elaborated on the country’s approach toward the development of a national cryptocurrency and highlighted some of the challenges facing the authorities in this regard.
During a press conference on Saturday, Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi added that before Iran can introduce its national virtual currency, several issues must be addressed.
Azari-Jahromi said, for instance, it should be determined whether the cryptocurrency is to be backed by physical commodities, the ministry’s website reported.
Earlier on Friday, one of the minister’s top consultants, Amir Hossein Davaie, was quoted as saying by the local media that the cryptocurrency must be backed by physical commodities like gold, oil, or even real currencies.
The minister said a framework for regulating cryptocurrencies should be defined, which would “enable us to envision our future moves in this regard”.
Azari-Jahromi further said the compliance of cryptocurrencies with jurisprudential rules must also be studied.
“Iran could have adopted two approaches toward the virtual currencies. We could have employed a passive approach and ignored global developments. Or we could have considered virtual currencies as an opportunity and employed their full potential. We chose the second approach,” he said.
Azari-Jahromi noted that the country’s financial regulator is the Central Bank of Iran that has been charged with the introduction and regulation of cryptocurrencies.
However, the minister is of the opinion that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is changing old boundaries, “and that’s why we at the ministry decided to assist CBI [in the development of the national cryptocurrency]”.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution refers to the fourth era since the initial Industrial Revolution of the 18th century. It pertains to the development of technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, and impacting all disciplines, economies and industries.
CBI is set to introduce a regulatory document about cryptocurrencies by September.
“Studying the coding procedures is a top priority. Such studies would enable us to conduct the [computational] algorithms [related to producing and selling virtual currencies],” he said.
The CIT minister noted that initially a pilot phase of the national cryptocurrency must be introduced to enable the regulator to grasp the challenges and hazards of a public offering.
Late February, the minister took to Twitter to announce plans about tapping into the potentials of blockchain technology to launch the national virtual currency.
At the time, he wrote, “In a meeting I had with the board of directors of Post Bank about digital currencies based on the blockchain, it was agreed that the bank would do what is necessary to conduct a trial run of the country’s first digital currency using the capacities of the nation’s elite.”
Those interested in collaborating in the establishment of the national virtual currency can send their resumes to cryptocurrency@postbank.ir.
Azari-Jahromi said the experimental model will soon be presented to the banking system for evaluation and confirmation.
The notion of Iran floating its own virtual currency was first brought to the attention of the media and the people in mid-October when Nasser Hakimi, CBI’s deputy for innovative technologies, said the idea has been pitched and is undergoing evaluation.
