Saeed Muhammad, the Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, called for Iran to use cryptocurrencies to evade the economic sanctions, as this week an Iranian general called for a unique way to bypass the sanctions on his country enforced by the United States.
Speaking from Iran on Wednesday, General Saeed Muhammad called for his country to bypass US sanctions using cryptocurrency https://t.co/5c2ZeBoYHQ $BTC $ETH $XRP $BNB — CryptoGryphon (@cryptogryphon) February 27, 2020
On February 26, it has been reported that according to the Telegram channel of Coinit.ir, a crypto news organization based in Iran, the Commander addressed a crowd (translated from Farsi):
“We are demanding the creation of a more sophisticated mechanism to bypass sanctions. To circumvent sanctions, we must develop solutions such as the exchange of products and the use of cryptocurrencies with our partnerships [in other countries].”
However, the people of Iran have seen the value of their currency drop significantly in the wake of the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, following the withdrawal of the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018.
Likewise, sanctions have effectively isolated Iran from foreign trade and investment and the use of cryptocurrencies has been on the rise ever since as a way to circumvent them. Bitcoin has been described in interviews as one of the only ways to get money in and out of the country.
<img width="1200" height="675" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.cryptonewspoint.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/image.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-11524 lazyload" />
Image: thenational.ae
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s administration announced that it would launch a national cryptocurrency back in 2018. More recently, Iran’s Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade issued more than 1,000 cryptocurrency mining licenses to domestic operations.
Thus, earlier this week, the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force added Iran to a blacklist of countries not complying with anti-terrorism financing requirements.
Source: cointelegraph.com