Cryptocurrency: Iranian fad in Kuala Lumpur to avoid US sanctions

Nora Bandari

The mullah regime in Tehran is working in every way to exploit any event that would enable it to emerge from its economic crisis. This prompted Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to submit a proposal for Islamic countries to deal in a unified digital cryptocurrency instead of the US dollar.

Rouhani offered the proposal during his speech at the Kuala Lumpur Summit that was held in Malaysia with the participation of Malaysia, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan and Indonesia.

This proposal aims to strengthen the financial relations between Islamic countries by establishing a common market in the digital economy field in order to get rid of the hegemony of the US dollar, Rouhani added, according to the official Malaysian news agency Bernama. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has supported the Iranian proposal to get rid of the US embargo, which is detrimental to Malaysia’s economic growth due to the use of the dollar.

Therefore, the Malaysian prime minister announced at a press conference after the conclusion of the summit on December 21 that Malaysia and other Islamic countries are considering implementing commercial transactions between them with gold and the barter system, as a form of protection from any possible future sanctions against them.

Cryptocurrency is important to the mullah regime at this moment in which it is experiencing constriction in all aspects due to the US sanctions. This digital currency allows customers to easily communicate with each other without knowledge of the sender and receiver, so purchases and transfers cannot be tracked. Therefore, countries that cannot deal with Iran fearing US sanctions could use this currency.

The Iranian regime alluded in January 2019 to seeking to deal with cryptocurrencies in order to counter US sanctions, which prompted the US Treasury to issue a statement announcing it would pursue any companies or exchanges trying to use digital currencies to help Iran escape sanctions.

Digital exchanges and companies that sell computers used for Bitcoin mining have warned against dealing with Tehran or providing any services to Iranian companies, which has prompted some commercial sites to confiscate Bitcoins owned by Iranians.

Getting around sanctions

Iranian affairs specialist Osama Al-Hatimi explained Rouhani’s call to deal in an Islamic digital currency to counter the US dollar as Iran faces economic sanctions reveals that the sanctions have had a negative impact on the country’s economic conditions, in terms of low Iranian oil exports, which is one of the main pillars of its economy.

Hatimi told the Reference that replacing the dollar with another currency is an attempt to circumvent the sanctions and restore the value of Iran’s local currency, which has lost more than 80% of its value since August 2018.