Iran: Still Waiting for the Blockchain Revolution

In his inaugural speech, Ali Divandari - the director of the Monetary and Banking Research Institution - stressed that "The realities of blockchain technology should be accepted." Also, many contributions from Iranian and foreign experts focused on the opportunities that fintech and blockchain could potentially open for the Iranian financial and banking industry.

Blockchain seems to be a thrilling topic for Iran: Before the end of the meeting, four Iranian banks announced that they have developed a gold-backed cryptocurrency called PayMon, aiming to tokenize part of their reserves.

Among the strongest supporters of an Iranian way to blockchain is Azari Jahromi.

Iranian cryptocurrency has been developed under private blockchain infrastructure and cannot be mined.

Despite being a simple tool in the hands of the banking system, the upcoming Iranian cryptocurrency could become another element in the diplomatic confrontation between Iran and the United States, which has escalated since the beginning of May 2018, when U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally rejected the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal - commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal - signed in 2015 by the U.S., Iran, the United Kingdom, France and Germany to freeze both Iranian nuclear plans and the subsequent international retaliation.

The crisis of the Iran nuclear deal leading to a severe devaluation of the rial, made the option to convert part of their savings into Bitcoin attractive for many Iranians.

The nongovernmental association Iran Blockchain Community argued that the measures introduced by the government since April 2018 to prevent the private sector from accessing cryptocurrencies cut the trade in Bitcoin in Iran from 1,000 BTC daily to 300; in the opinion of Sepehr Mohammadi, IBC's president, this deprived the country of a valuable asset in regard to future economic development and of a useful tool to counter sanctions.

It is possible to identify some direct connections, as Petro enjoyed - or pretended to enjoy - Russian support and, in November 2018, the Russian Association of the Crypto Industry and Blockchain signed an agreement with Iran Blockchain Labs.

The analogies could also include the similarity of the bans imposed both by Russia and Iran on the crypto community's favored instant messaging platform, Telegram, which both countries accused of trying to create a completely uncontrolled financial system through its ICO. In Telegram's case, on the other hand, this shows the complexity and potential dynamism of the Iranian context.

Even if the official stance toward the app remains harsh, the Iranian civil society showed it was sympathetic with the more reform-oriented wing of the government, gathering around President Rouhani - a pattern that could repeat itself on other issues relating to crypto and blockchain.