Venezuela and Iran will also be among the first countries to formally adopt cryptocurrencies.
By Farzaaaad2000 in Persian Wikipedia (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
An article on Twitter by Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi of Iran’s Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) states:
در جلسهای که با هیئت مدیره پست بانک در خصوص ارزهای دیجیتال مبتنی بر زنجیره بلوکی داشتم، مقرر شد این بانک اقدامات لازم برای پیاده سازی آزمایشی اولین ارز دیجیتالی کشور را با استفاده از ظرفیت نخبگان کشور به عمل آورد. مدل آزمایشی برای بررسی و تایید به نظام بانکی کشور ارائه خواهد شد.
— MJ Azari Jahromi (@azarijahromi) February 21, 2018
““In a meeting with the board of directors of Post Bank on digital currencies based on the blockchain, I … prescribed … measures to implement the country’s first cloud-based digital currency.””
On Wednesday, Venezuela‘s Nicolas Maduro tweeted that the new cryptocurrency has raised $ 735 million. Iran and Venezuela are all members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), so if Iran were approved and developed eventually it could also use 1 barrel of crude oil as a physical mortgage.
Cryptocurrencies are beginning to enter a new phase where governments are deploying them. In addition to Iran and Venezuela, Russia has expressed interest in developing a product called CryptoRuble.