Saw something in the news that the Iranian government has given the green light for some import/export payments to be done in bitcoin due to sanctions. But what's the full story on the legality of buying bitcoin in Iran? I’ve heard trading is off-limits. Can folks actually buy or sell bitcoin there? What choices do they have?
From what I have understood on the articles, the Government will be the only one that will be using cryptocurrency. In short, people might not be able to trade with crypto. I might be wrong though and the case might be that cryptocurrency will be legal for all citizens. This is a scary thing because if Iran decides to do it, they might go on a rogue to secretly fund a nuclear program via cryptocurrency.
I read that there is no problem for Iranians to buy or sell Bitcoin there...
Iran has clearly stated openly to the world that they are a Bitcoin-friendly country. even the Bitcoin miners there are given permission to mine by the government at low electricity costs.
Adoption will be easier if the government is the first to adopt, if it's true that the government legalized transaction, their citizen will be lucky to adopt Cryptocurrency without any issues, one big hindrance in adoption is the government restriction like what's happening in India and other part of the world, it's very encouraging on what's happening in Iran, neighboring countries will soon follow Iran's lead.
Not sure what the official stance is either but I know personally people there doing business with Bitcoin and as far as they can tell, there's no clampdown on p2p activity -- people now sending Bitcoin abroad to pay for their student fees, etc. US dollars hard to come by.
The issue seems to be with miners alone. And that's really just because it's related to private/hobbyist miners using cheap electricity. Obviously the state won't be happy with people using heavily subsidised electricity for what is after all, a commercial activity. No country would.
I'm not sure it's only the government, I found a quote in a newspaper I've posted in another thread on this same subject:
All in all it doesn't matter it's only government or also individuals/private companies who mined it, the coins will be useful only to buy from abroad.
This also kind of answers to the question OP asked: since BTC can be used only to pay for "imports", it makes sense that crypto exchange/trading is not allowed.
PS. Source link for that quote: http://www.irandaily.ir/News/275899.html
I think the only reason the Iranian authorities stated they are Bitcoin-friendly is that they struggling under the sanctions and Bitcoin is a very good solution, but good solution is only for them I think. Yes, crypto-mining is legal but miners are allowed to sell only to the government. I doub't the government will allow to buy/sell bitcoin to ordinary people since trading is banned.
"people now sending Bitcoin abroad to pay for their student fees, etc. US dollars hard to come by." If they are sending bitcoin abroad, how and where do they buy bitcoin? Can they buy bitcoin for their national currency(rial, toman)?
Yes, you can check a few p2p sites. Localbitcoins definitely right now has sellers/traders there selling and buying Bitcoin for rial. I'm checking right now and there are 2. You can actually find a few more in other countries, but mainly no longer for IRR. A bit of a premium now but still about "3,450,921,459.88 IRR / BTC
It will be easy buying and selling Bitcoin because Iran is Crypto friendly, they can do peer to peer until they have a legal local exchange for Cryptocurrency, if many of their citizen are trading Bitcoin the government might set up a local exchange to avoid fraud and scams among traders.
Certainly, what the Iranian government is seeking is to avoid the US sanctions imposed on it through the use of Bitcoin because it is anonymous and decentralized so the United States or other countries cannot control it and therefore they cannot ban Iran, but in return I think that the Iranian government will never be happy with its citizens' use of Bitcoin. Because this makes them out of control and surveillance as well, and this is what the Iranian government never liked, so it certainly will not make Bitcoin legal for use by Iranian citizens.
When will our government be free and less greedy and corrupt to her citizens? Every rule they implement is for their favor and against the masses.
That's to tell how wicked the government can be to deny her citizens full access to crypto but only allowed to use bitcoin
A time is coming when the government can't detect or control her citizens over issues relating to financial well-being.
It will be good move by the government.It will be good for the people and help the government to regulate the flow of cryptocurrency in their country. The government can collect the tax from the people and use that tax for the welfare of people. So the tax collection for the cryptocurrency will be better option. It also used for the people welfare.