According to the chairman of the Iranian parliament’s economic committee, Iran’s $2.5 billion outflow was used to buy money abroad. Before he made this remark, the Central Bank of Iran ordered that domestic banks be prohibited from dealing with digital currency transactions including Bitcoin.

US$2.5 billion in capital outflows

According to Ibena.ir, a news agency, Mohammad Reza Pourebrahimi, chairman of the Iranian parliament’s economic committee, said last week that there are already data showing that some Iranian citizens are users of cryptocurrencies and have more than 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in funds flow overseas for buying it.

He had previously told the Iranian student news agency that the Iranians had transferred more than 30 billion U.S. dollars overseas during the past months. “Iranians cannot use the international banking system, and transfer can only be through non-traditional channels, such as foreign exchange dealers or people traveling internationally.”

The chairman’s remarks followed the central bank ban. Not long ago, the central bank banned domestic banks and financial institutions from processing figures. Currency trading, pointing out that it has the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing.

Iran’s national digital currency

Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi, the Minister of Information and Communications Technology of Iran (ICT), recently confirmed that (the country) is experimenting with developing its own cryptocurrency and is ready to test the model.

But in an interview with Ibena.ir last week, Pourebrahimi saidthat “the country’s virtual currency is not being designed and developed.”

Nevertheless, he stated that Iran’s national cryptocurrency “can promote economic transactions and bypass the sanctions”. He also pointed out that “the future world economic activities will be conducted using digital currency.” The chairman claimed that some countries want to cooperate with Iran economically, but because of the sanctions can not be achieved, the national cryptourrency can be multilateral for Iran and these countries.

The structure of cryptocurrency should be applied to economic activities and at the same time be recognized at the international level.

Pourebrahimi believes that one of the benefits of cryptocurrency is that it “will not be regulated by the United States,” and he admits that this can bypass the sanctions. His remarks are the same as those of Azari-Jahromi last week. “All cryptocurrencies can circumvent sanctions because they are not under the supervision of the U.S. financial regulator.”

At the same time, US President Trump has already announced that he will withdraw from the Iranian nuclear agreement set in 2015 and resume the sanctions on Iranian oil exports.

@cryptomarks