Iran’s use of cryptocurrencies to combat the drawbacks of being cut off from the global financial system was generating headlines up until the catastrophic collapse of the digital-asset exchange FTX last week.
The top cryptocurrency exchange Binance processed $7.8 billion in Iranian cryptocurrency transactions during 2018, according to Reuters news agency, despite severe US economic sanctions on Tehran.
According to the study, virtually all of the cash was transferred between Binance and Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Nobitex provides instructions on how to avoid sanctions on its website.
According to the investigation, Iranian transactions also involved smaller tokens like Litecoin and the less well-known cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Ether, Tether, and XRP in addition to the Tron token.
Ali Plucinski, a cybersecurity expert with the risk intelligence firm RANE, was not surprised by the disclosures. She told Arab News, “Iran has increasingly turned to cryptocurrencies and crypto mining in recent years to dodge US economic sanctions and to strengthen domestic revenue with some success.
“Iran possesses significant natural resources, especially natural energy resources, and in response to strong US sanctions on its oil and gas sector, Iran has instead diverted some of these resources to the production of electricity to fuel crypto-mining and the accrual of cryptocurrencies.”
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