Turkey, Iran To Release State-Backed Cryptocurrencies On Heels Of Venezuela's Petro
February 23 2018 - 11:53AM
ADVFN Crypto NewsWire
The governments of Turkey and Iran
are both considering developing their own government-backed digital
currencies, following on the heels of the Feb. 20 pre-sale of
Venezuela’s national oil-backed Petro coin.
Feb. 21, a day after the Petro’s
launch, Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) tweeted that Iran’s Post Bank is working on
releasing a cryptocurrency:
"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."
Feb. 22, two days after the Petro’s
launch, Middle-Eastern news outlet Al-Monitor reported that
Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputy chair and former
Industry Minister Ahmet Kenan Tanrikulu is publically considering
launching a “national Bitcoin” called the “Turkcoin”, described in
his 22-page report on regulating the crypto market.
Tanrikulu’s report comes two weeks
after a Feb. 7 CNN Turk interview with Turkey’s Deputy Prime
Minister Mehmet Simse where he mentioned that the government would
be preparing to release a national cryptocurrency.
Last November, the Iranian
cyberspace authority, the High Council of Cyberspace (HCC),
“welcome[d] Bitcoin” and announced that they were working with the
Central Bank of Iran on a report on cryptocurrencies. On Feb. 21
the Central Bank of Iran said that it was actively working on a way
to “control and prevent” cryptocurrencies in Iran.
Turkey’s government had previously
taken a harsh stance on Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies, when
lawmakers from the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) said
in November, 2017 that trading crypto was “not compatible” with
Islam due to its speculative nature and lack of government
control.
However, Tanrikulu told Al-Monitor
that since there is no mention of cryptocurrencies in Turkish law,
buying and selling crypto is legal in Turkey:
“The use of cryptocurrencies can be
considered legal since our law contains no prohibition [...] buying
and selling with cryptocurrencies and creating money through
Bitcoin mining are not within the scope of criminal activity in
Turkey today.”
Tanrikulu’s report adds that crypto
regulation is definitely needed in Turkey to prevent money
laundering and fraud, and that the creation of a
government-controlled “bitcoin bourse” is one way to do
so.
Venezuela’s Petro has been seen by
some critics as solely a way for the country to avoid the Western
sanctions imposed on the country; Iran is also currently facing
international sanctions.
The Petro is not the first
government-backed cryptocurrency to be launched — the local
government in Dubai launched the state-backed emCash in October
2017, and in 2017 Kazakhstan, Japan, and Estonia have all brought
up the possibility of releasing their own government-backed
cryptocurrencies.
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