IslamicFinance.de

Iran has revealed that one of the country’s banks is working on a state-backed virtual currency. Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi tweeted he had proposed to implement the country’s first cloud-based digital currency. Iran is still mostly cut off from major international payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard and services such as PayPal. The announcement on its crypto project follows Venezuela’s launch of the world’s first national digital currency the 'petro'. According to President Nicolas Maduro, the oil-backed cryptocurrency has raised the equivalent of more than $735 million. After the successful pre-sale of the petro last week, Maduro announced a new virtual token, dubbed 'petro oro', which will be backed by precious metals.

Iran has announced its intent to establish a national cryptocurrency. Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, head of Iran's Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, posted in a Tweet that a test model for a cloud-based digital currency is being developed. The announcement comes after Venezuela's oil-backed "petro" cryptocurrency launch earlier this week. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claims that the cryptocurrency has raised over $700 million. There are fears that the rise of state-backed cryptocurrencies could challenge international efforts to regulate financial transactions and impose sanctions. The three countries most interested in the technology, Iran, Venezuela and Russia, are all targeted by U.S. sanctions.

President Nicolas Maduro announced that Venezuela would issue 100 million units of an oil-backed cryptocurrency known as the petro. Maduro said that the petro would be backed by 5 billion barrels in the Ayacucho block of the Orinoco Oil Belt. Based on the latest price of the country’s oil basket, the total issue would be worth about $5.9 billion. Maduro believes the cryptocurrency will help the South American country challenge the tyranny of the dollar, economic war and US-led financial persecution. Over the past year, the US Treasury Department has blacklisted numerous top-ranking officials, including Maduro and many of his ministers. Home to the world’s largest crude reserves, Venezuelan oil output fell to a 14-year low last July. Maduro didn’t comment on whether Venezuela bondholders would be paid with petros. At the start, the petro will be obtained through auctions or direct allocation by the country’s Cryptocurrency Superintendent.