The Iranian lawmakers have moved to put a curb on cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country, by enforcing existing traditional sector regulations on them.
According to local news outlet ArzDigital, a bill was moved in the Iranian parliament to include digital currencies in the existing “currency smuggling” and foreign exchange regulations.
If passed, the law would make it mandatory for cryptocurrency exchanges to obtain a license from the country’s central bank for operation under the current guidelines for the foreign currency exchange.
However, it is not clear yet how the government is expecting the digital currency businesses to follow the norms designed for traditional finances and also the process of registration.
Given all this, it can be anticipated that the authority is moving to curb Iran’s growing digital currency industry. Any violation of the proposed law would land the business operators in jail or impose heavy fines on them.
Notably, in the current scenario, most of Iran’s crypto exchanges are registered outside Iran. So it is also not clear how the government is planning to enforce the law on these businesses.
Cryptocurrencies have become very popular in Iran as many citizens are using them for cross-border transactions, circumventing the sanctions imposed by the United States.
A positive approach to crypto mining
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency mining is also very popular in the country with low electricity costs.
The Iranian authorities, however, took a different approach with the mining businesses. Instead of banning them, Iran regulated the industry and mandated licensing of crypto mining farms.
Since the enforcement of such regulations last year, the government issued licenses to , and one of the latest being a Bitcoin mining farm with a capacity of .
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