Iran wants to form a cryptocurrency coalition with several countries in order to circumvent sanctions by the United States. According to the Tehran Times the country has been in talks with representatives from Switzerland, South Africa, France, England, Russia, Austria, Germany and Bosnia. Iran is seeking foreign investors into the country and its state-backed 'Crypto Rial'.
A state-owned cryptocurrency would be a solution to Iran being blocked from trading dollars using the banking system. By circumventing the US dollar Iran can just keep trading with its international partners.
On January 29th the European Union already announced plan to bypass the US sanctions, as they still want to do business with the Persian country. France, the UK and Germany led the efforts to just remove the US dollar from their business, as they import natural gas from Iran.
President Donald Trump has been talking about banking protocol SWIFT, and how it should cut its ties with Iranian banks. SWIFT is the international protocol for bank transfers, and it's an American business. The United States are now threatening the European Union to not do business with Iran, or lose their deals with the U.S.
Now back to Iran's Crypto Rial, as the idea is expected to get more serious. According to the United States, countries that are likely to work with the Iranian cryptocurrency are China, Russia, Turkey and Venezuela, all of them not having a good relationship with Trump's America anyway.
Venezuela has its own oil-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro. China is working on a central bank-backed digital currency, as the trade-war with Donald Trump is still going on. At the same time Russia is considering dipping its toes into crypto as well. Cryptocurrencies are freeing countries from the dominance of the US dollar, which has been crippling many country for decades.
Posted from my blog: https://www.nederob.nl/2019/02/01/iranian-crypto-coalition-to-break-free-from-us-dollar/