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"As soon as possible": Iran lays the foundation for the adoption of bitcoin

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The Iranian government would install the infrastructure for bitcoin users in a move that could see the gain status of cryptocurrency legal tender in the country.

In an interview published in the Farsi newspaper Shargh in late October, Iran's Minister of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Amir Hossein Davaee revealed a concentrated effort by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology ICT to prepare the country to adopt Bitcoin as a currency.

As quoted the Iran Front in translated statements, the ICT Minister said:

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has already carried out a number of studies as part of efforts to prepare the infrastructure to use Bitcoin at the University of California. inside the country.

The Iranian official specifically focused on the economic and infrastructural aspects of the potential inherent in cryptocurrencies. The adoption of a digital infrastructure will help Iran to defend its general interests, said the official.

He then added that a redesign of the current digital infrastructure to accommodate crypto-currencies like Bitcoin is among the main goals of the department.

We (ICT), as the main Iranian center dealing with the country's technological developments, have taken the issue of infrastructure preparation for the new currency very seriously.

Iran has suffered from bank failures brought on by economic sanctions in the past and is comprehensively considering new financial technologies, such as cryptocurrencies, to give up its dependence on the issue. an economic system centered on the dollar and the central system. In 2012, the global SWIFT payment network removed Iran from its network of global banks, thereby disconnecting the Iranian banking system from global commerce. The impact was also felt on global companies engaged in transactions with parties in Iran via bitcoin.

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Iranian banks were finally reconnected to SWIFT last year after the sanctions imposed on Tehran were lifted after the US President Obama 's nuclear deal with the US. Iran in January 2016.

This nuclear deal was recently disavowed by current US President Trump less than a month ago.

In his recent comments, Minister of ICT Davaee added:

Arrangements are made with the organizations concerned to put in place the infrastructure as soon as possible.

Iran's research on modernizing its digital infrastructure to accommodate cryptocurrencies comes at a time amidst speculation about Catalonia's adoption of its own cryptocurrency.

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