After the United States reactivated economic sanctions on Iran, the country has been reportedly developing a national cryptocurrency which will enable it to circumvent the sanctions.
However, lawmakers in the United States have realized that Iran developing a national cryptocurrency may be one way to render the sanctions powerless. Therefore, to try and keep the sanctions effective, the lawmakers have drafted a bill that is meant to reduce the support the Iranians get in their tracks towards a national cryptocurrency.
The bill, Blocking Iran Illicit Finance Act, seeks to:
Impose sanctions with respect to Iranian financial institutions and the development and use of Iranian digital currency, and for other purposes.
The lawmakers
also want to widen the scope of the sanctions to include:
Persons knowingly and directly providing specialized financial messaging services to, or enabling or facilitating direct or indirect access to such messaging services for, Central Bank of Iran, other designated Iranian banks, or Iranian financial institutions removed from the list of specifically designated persons pursuant to the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Still, on this month, the Senate received another bill seeking to have an update on how far Iran is on developing a national cryptocurrency.
Economic
sanctions over Iran were imposed back in 2005 because of its nuclear program. The
sanctions meant that Iran would not directly interact with the United States in
terms of finances. However, after Iran agreed to scale down on its nuclear
program, the sanctions were removed in 2015.
But this was short-lived because, in mid-2018, the sanctions were re-imposed after Donald Trump, the United States president, led America out of the pact which was entered into before he assumed power.
From that moment, Iran and the United States financial system started being at loggerheads. SWIFT, a payment system connecting banks all over the world, is having second thoughts on connecting Iranian banks with the rest of the world.
Do you
think the U.S fears that a national cryptocurrency will remove Iran out of its
grip?
Let us
know your thoughts in the comments section below.
