US: More Sanctions For Iran Towards The Use Of The National Digital Currency

The sanction wave seems to be never-ending for Iran since in our latest crypto news we can see that the United States lawmakers introduced another bill for even more sanctions on all of the financial institutions in Iran but also for the use of the national digital currency.

The bill was introduced on December 17 in the House of Representatives with hopes to combat money laundering and terrorism activities. According to the bill ‘’Blocking Iran Illicit Finance Act’’ wants to sanction the entire Iranian financial sector.

The sanctions mean prohibition of transactions and financing with the Iranian digital currency but also sanctions for foreign individuals that sale, supply or hold the digital currency.

First introduced, the sanctions were meant for the nuclear program in Iran in 2005 and the sanctions affected the financial sector of the country by forbidding financial institutions of Iran to access the US financial system directly.

However, the sanctions were lifted in 2015 when the country agreed to meet the standards of the nuclear program that were set out by the International Atomic Energy Agency in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from JCPOA in May 2018 thus sanctions towards Iran were reintroduced.

Many of the people in Iran now try to find a way to avoid sanctions and the solution most commonly chosen is cryptocurrency. The head of the Iranian Parliamentary Commission for Economic Affairs Mohammad Reza Pourebrahimi believes that cryptocurrencies are a very promising tool to avoid the US sanctions and hopefully replace the SWIFT system.