Iran has issued new regulations to direct Bitcoin that is mined in the country into the state coffers so that the government can use them to acquire various imports. This has been reported by the state-run media, the Iranian Students’ News Agency.
These regulations, designed and proposed in cooperation between the Ministry of Energy and the country’s central bank, stipulate that Iran’s registered cryptocurrency miners are obliged to sell their tokens to the Central Bank of Iran. The authorities in Tehran have grown especially interested in Bitcoin as a tool to navigate around the crippling US sanctions, which have led to a 33% reduction in Iran`s foreign reserves in the past two years.
Analysts have pointed out that Tehran’s decision bears similarities with Venezuela’s recent step to nationalize mining pools around the country. Venezuela is also looking for means to work around sanctions put forward by the US.
A short while after the US withdrew from the international treaty on Iran’s nuclear program in 2018, it imposed back sanctions prohibiting groups that are doing business with Iran from doing business with the US. After that, the US Secretary of State informed about a new set of sanctions aimed at 18 Iranian banks.
