Day: May 29, 2018

Bitcoin payroll firm Bitwage has launched an advisory company aimed to make it easier for companies to launch token sales.

In an era of data breaches and regulation, it’s time our credit network got its act together. The Equifax data breach opened the eyes of millions of consumers around the world to the harsh reality that is our economic backbone.

Why should companies like Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion be charged with maintaining our information and governing the terms of our loans and credit applications? It’s clear they cannot be trusted in this day and age with the unlimited information that is submitted to them every second of every day.

By opening our credit networks to the blockchain and smart contracts, we will begin to see a new way in which borrowers and lenders are connected around the world, exchanging any currency they see fit and governing the terms of loans.

Ripio Credit Network has identified these issues and aims to reshape the global credit network. By reducing the brokerage costs and management fees associated with traditional methods, RCN enables more favorable conditions for everyone involved. RCN is leading the way in the democratization of credit through blockchain technology.

Controlling The Terms of A Loan: A Dream Come True For Younger Borrowers

RCN’s recent upgrade, dubbed “Basalt,” includes the Oracle V2 and Cosigner V2 enhancements, offering lenders and borrowers much more flexibility, all while lowering costs. The biggest issue borrowers face, particularly students, is that they have little to no bargaining power when it comes to negotiating a loan. It’s a take-it-or-leave-it scenario.

The Basalt upgrade changes the dynamic entirely. By providing the borrower with the tools necessary to select the terms of his or her loan, offering additional cosigner options, minimizing interest fees, and eliminating almost all maintenance fees, Basalt makes these loans less intimidating and more borrower-friendly.

How Can Cryptocurrency Benefit The Lending Space?

By exploring non-fungible ERC-721 tokens as potential collateral for loans, RCN is honing in on its vision for a new loan transactional model, where distributed ledger assets act as collateral for fiat credit lines. As each token is completely unique, the ERC-721 standard offers a clear way to identify each loan. Lenders can easily manage their RCN loans by integrating these tokens with compatible exchanges and crypto wallets.

“The Bitcoin-based collateralized loans we envisioned in 2016 inspired our evolved concept of RCN,” says David Garcia, RCN’s managing director. Using high potential applications of distributed ledger assets, we are also refloating this concept as we notice a huge opportunity.”

With ERC-721, the cosigner can act as an “escrow” to protect their collateral, and transfers the relevant asset to the borrower or lender based on the default loan repayment conditions.

“These non-fungible tokens would have specific value for lenders and borrowers that agree [on] a loan transaction,” says Garcia. “We are working on a prototype [in] this regard that we expect to unveil soon.”

In a 2016 patent application, Ripio laid out its original idea for a loan transaction model that does not require collateral, and uses a third party agent (the cosigner) to reduce and/or prevent defaults. According to the company, this idea was the “predecessor” of RCN´s protocol design.

Toward A More Secure Future

To advance its goals, RCN’s lead developer also recently proposed the ERC-939 variation as an EIP. This proposal, which would allow DApps and networks to connect and exchange information using claims, is currently being analyzed and discussed by the developers. The ERC-939 proposal offers the ability to include a borrower’s credit risk history and identity assessment information on the blockchain.

The Ethereum network is growing at an accelerated pace. With hundreds of tokens issued on top of this technology, things look rather promising. Additionally, there’s substantial growth in the number of dApps making use of Ethereum’s technology. All of this seems to hint at a bright future for this project in general.

Ethereum Attracts a lot of People

The overall interest in the Ethereum ecosystem cannot be denied. Alethio’s Christian Crowley recently shared some interesting statistics regarding this particular situation. According to the company’s analytics, Ethereum is now home to over 700 tokens issued on top of this blockchain infrastructure. Most of the tokens adhere to the ERC20 standard, albeit some are exploring ERC223 as well.

While that is impressive, it only tells part of the story. The more intriguing statistic is how there are over 1,000 dApps live on in development. These distributed applications make use of the Ethereum blockchain in many innovative ways. Accessing these dApps is also becoming a bit easier thanks to a handful of dedicated efforts.

Perhaps the most impressive statistic is the transaction throughput. Alethio claims close to 1 million transactions are processed per day. Considering how nearly 100,000 new users join the network daily, that number will continue to increase. Whether or not the network can handle it, however, will be a different matter altogether. Scalability remains a pressing problem in the cryptocurrency world.

What Comes Next for Ethereum?

All of the statistics provided by Alethio paints an interesting future for Ethereum. All aspects of the project are of great interest to many different users and companies. The number of potential applications for blockchain technology is virtually limitless. With close to 30 million unique ETH addresses, another milestone is about to be reached later this year.

On the technical side, the protocol will undergo big changes as well. The switch to proof-of-stake is inching closer every week. While not a full-fledged removal of mining right away, it will introduce some major changes regardless. Given all of the negativity surrounding cryptocurrency mining’s electricity usage, such a switch seems more than warranted.

Everything looks very positive for the future of Ethereum. Even so, things are always subject to change in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Other projects are also making their mark on the dApp and token industry these days. Competition is always a good thing, especially in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. How that will play out for the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, remains to be seen.

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Data privacy and security issues have been brought to the forefront yet again with the recent Facebook scandal revealing that user data was compromised for commercial and political agendas, as well as recent hacking of high-profile sites. These have raised concerns for governments, businesses and users at a period coinciding with the enforcement of the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on 25 May.

In the blockchain world, developers have been working to improve and refine a technology based on the concept of zero-knowledge (zk) proofs, which works on the basis that it is not necessary to reveal anything about the actual nature of information for its authenticity to be verified. One example is to use zk proofs to protect details in cryptocurrency transactions.

However, experts have identified the flaws in the security of simpler zk cryptography, which can be slow and cumbersome to use as ‘zk-SNARKs’ (zero-knowledge, Succinct, Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge) as the next iteration of security. These provide a threshold of information that can be released to meet the requirements of a query. If a query wants to confirm a person had more than a certain amount of money in the bank account, the verification can confirm this without revealing the exact amount. This enables companies to use blockchain technology to supply information quickly in response to queries without revealing the data.

Financial transactions are considered private or commercial in confidence, and companies don’t prefer to reveal this information to anyone, for example, when this information might be necessary for maintaining their market position. zk-SNARKs enable companies to list proof of a transaction on a node while keeping their commercially-sensitive data separate.

Another enhancement of zk proofs is the development of a new model that will increase anonymity in cryptocurrency transactions. StarkWare utilized zk-STARK (Zero-Knowledge Scalable Transparent Arguments-of-Knowledge) mechanism to create a more secure environment for those undertaking cryptocurrency transactions. This way, there is no need to reveal the data to all other contacts with access to a local node. There are claims that they will be more effective than zk-SNARKS as they will be cheaper, faster and secure.

StarkWare has decided to introduce a new business model called ‘Tech For Tokens’. It will act as a service supply company to blockchain organizations and receive payment for their services in cryptocurrency tokens. This will be a challenge for many who have become accustomed to each new technology development having its coin offering.

However, there is a great and growing interest in data protection. This new technology can be an opportunity to change thinking in several ways.

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Video streaming is strongly rooted in the landscape of today’s internet. From subscription services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon up to extensive usage of web sites, primary YouTube we can see enormous growth in video IP traffic. Cisco in its report from June 2017 states that video traffic in 2021 alone will constitute 82% of total 3.3 ZB, up from 73% and 1.2 ZB in 2016.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

There is visible shift towards mobile as the viewing device with predicted CAGR for years 2016-2021 as high as 55%. This trend is fueled by increased numbers of smartphone owners, development of new high speed radio networks and falling prices both for new smartphones and subscription plans.

The growth in internet video traffic to TV is little less prominent but still, the growth ratio for 5 years of 27% may be considered high. This segment of the market is serviced mostly by SVOD providers connected with big media companies, some of them running their businesses worldwide.

Some of the increased traffic numbers in predictions may be due to HD to 4K quality switch, but the most of it can be attributed to generic shift in content consumption models across population. There is increased trend away from written word and toward descriptive videos. This trend emanates mostly throughout video marketing. We are living now in video-first world and video is at the hearth of majority apps and services. 64% of consumers makes their purchase decisions based on watched product presentations in the internet. What’s interesting the gross of those presentations are performed by independent influencers on their private channels. For example, only 8% of marketing videos on YouTube is published by media companies. Facebook shows little different ratios with more activity of advertising agencies but video marketing done by influencers is its heyday nonetheless.

Among all possible video transmissions subtypes, life video is predicted to have the most substantial growth ratio in upcoming years. Live broadcast will account for 13% of Internet video traffic in 2021. A massive 15-fold increase from just 0,87% in 2016. Market studies show there is really big potential in live streaming. Most of today’s live transmissions are performed through software like skype or FaceTime and by corporate telepresence systems. But there are much more applications for live streaming, both in b2b and b2c segments of the market. Companies in various industries lean toward on-line interactive client servicing and acquisition. It’s there, where the predicted growth will explode. Live video transmission is very convenient and cost effective for every business where direct contact with the other side, whether it is another company or regular customer is required. This is applicable to many industries like financial advices, legal counsel, insurance, employer training and medical consultations just to name few. Big companies are able to deploy their own systems for servicing their own clients. Individuals could take advantage of live streaming option on existing video platforms. But all those systems have many flaws concerning such transmissions. Live video option looks on them almost like an afterthought. They lack crucial functionalities required by individuals, and are almost completely useless for businesses, maybe only with exclusion of some sort of marketing activities. The fundamental problem lays in monetization of the live content. No current video platform has devised financial model which would fuel and sustain rise in number of live transmissions across the Internet. And no one has proposed financial model specifically beneficial for streamers.

Such situation led to the idea and creation of a new platform based on entirely new paradigm of operation and new business model which opens entirely new possibilities for business or individuals and also promises consolidation of many different industries under one umbrella.

On.Live is marketplace for live advices, and mass video broadcasts. It was created with users and their interests in mind. Our team had approached monetization problem from totally different angle.

In On.Live the users have total freedom in setting their own price for their streamed live video advice and broadcasts. Payments for the service providers are never limited due to insufficient number of subscribers. In fact, funds are transferred from customer to service provider directly. The platform is a mere agent here. With On.Live any business owner or enthusiast can earn on live video streaming with every single recipient or subscriber to their content. There is no need to build user base to be profitable. On.Live is also the first fully tokenized video platform. It means that sole payment method for services on the platform is ONL token. Customers who want to access payed content on the platform simply exchange their regular currency for ONL tokens, and then pay for services with it. Of course reverse operation and withdrawal of owned or earned tokens is also possible. What is truly revolutionary, the platform account settling system is built on top of ethereum blockchain which insures almost immediate transfer of funds and together with build escrow solution guarantees sanctity of means of payment on every user account. No matter if you are professional or hobbyist, On.Live creates the space for everyone to monetize on your talent, or knowledge of the trade. On.Live does it in new, unprecedented way, inscribing itself into new rising market of live video streaming, but unlike others, does it with community interest in mind.

Join On.Live and hop into the new fascinating world of profitable live streaming! Join the revolution!

South Korea’s legislative arm of government is pushing for the removal of the country’s ban on domestic initial coin offerings.

Bitcoin is a notoriously volatile market. Massive price swings occur on a regular basis and cause a fair bit of negative market pressure. One of the main questions is whether or not there is effectively any degree of Bitcoin price manipulation taking place. The proof is in the pudding, but it remains difficult to say for sure.

The Wild Bitcoin Price Swings

Over the past nine years, there have been many debates regarding the Bitcoin price. It is an extremely unstable market, which tends to see ups and downs when people least expect it. To some users, this is a clear sign of market manipulation. Others see it as “another day at the office”. In a lot of cases, the BTC price is fluctuating for no apparent reason at all.

Financial markets, in general, seem to be prone to manipulation. It has happened before, and it will continue to happen for some time to come. People with a lot of money to spend will look for any way to improve their portfolio. This is no different in the world of cryptocurrency, which is perhaps even easier to manipulate, to a certain degree.

More specifically, all cryptocurrencies have a rather low market cap. Albeit $150 billion sounds pretty steep for Bitcoin, it is a small market compared to traditional assets. Anyone looking to influence cryptocurrency prices will effectively manipulate the markets whenever they see fit. Proving this is done on a large scale, however, will always remain rather challenging.

The Manipulation Will not Stop

The US Justice Department is looking into Bitcoin price manipulation right now. Whether or not they will find anything out of the ordinary, remains to be seen. Even so, indicting anyone for this manipulative behavior will pose another big problem. Large holders of Bitcoin can effectively influence the market with a few clicks of a button, but that isn’t necessarily nefarious intent.

Very few people benefit from a lower Bitcoin price. Miners need a specific BTC value to break even, let alone make a profit. Large holders of Bitcoin are not inclined to see their portfolio value drop either. Exchanges have no real benefit from a lower Bitcoin price either. As such, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence regarding cryptocurrency price manipulation. Not enough to effectively change this situation overnight, unfortunately.

For the time being, it remains to be seen what the future holds for the Bitcoin price. Rest assured the manipulation will not stop, for better or worse. Those driving the price down will continue to do so until they are satisfied. The ultimate objective of doing so remains a bit unclear at this stage. An uneasy Bitcoin price situation will remain in place for quite some time to come.

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Former master forger turned FBI consultant Frank Abagnale has recently addressed a Blockchain Nation conference in Miami with a prediction that banks will all move to blockchain in the future, as reported by CNN.

Abagnale is probably better known to moviegoers as the main character in the 2012 Steven Spielberg film ‘Catch Me If You Can’, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

The film is based on the life of Frank Abagnale who, before his 19th birthday, successfully performed cons worth millions of dollars by posing as a Pan American World Airways pilot, a Georgia doctor and a Louisiana parish prosecutor. He later became a consultant for the FBI after his release from prison in the US having been extradited from France, where he was eventually captured in Perpignan in 1969.

Abagnale entertained the conference with some of his exploits, including the time he defrauded United Airlines and Hertz, which involved him purchasing a security guard costume, placing a sign at an airport which read, ‘Out of Service, Place Deposits With Security Guard on Duty’, and collecting millions of dollars from the dropped bags.

The ex-forger turned FBI consultant was positive in his predictions about blockchain and its place in the future.

“I think you would have to be pretty ignorant not to realize that blockchain is the way for the future, it is the best way to secure information 100 percent, so I think you will see banks, especially accounting practices and accounting firms, all move to the blockchain, keeping records through blockchain. It will be the best way to do so because you cannot break the blockchain, you cannot hack into the blockchain, you can’t change anything in the blockchain.”

Abagnale’s viewpoint on blockchain and cryptocurrency is significant given his past, where he generated millions of dollars in profit by breaking into the broken financial system and structure of banks, by forging checks, stealing cash, and redirecting funds.

Today, Bitcoin’s security makes the transfer of funds far less susceptible to the kinds of fraud employed by Abagnale at the height of his fraudulent successes. To create more Bitcoin, in the way that he attempted to produce US dollars, is not feasibly possible. Forging Bitcoin would involve running a “51% attack” against the network, which would require controlling just over half of the computing power currently dedicated to securing the Bitcoin network – realistically and financially unfeasible given the massive network of computers all over the world already doing so.

On safety, Abagnale maintains that every financial transaction has risk attached to it, apart from credit cards as the federal law takes on the liability. However, he is convinced that blockchain is the future:

“One would have to be incredibly foolish not to see that [blockchain] is an incredible technology and that will be eventually adopted by all types of governments, businesses, and corporations,” he said.

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A surprising trend is taking place in the world of cryptocurrency right now. After multiple days of major setbacks, it now appears the situation is slowly improving. The Cardano price, for example, has suddenly increased by 7.5% over the past 24 hours. A very surprising turn of events, although a welcome sight for sore eyes.

The Cardano Price Suddenly Turns Bullish

Given all of the negative momentum affected all cryptocurrency markets throughout 2018, any uptrend is considered to be an anomaly these days. It is evident things are not heading in the direction most people would like it to, albeit the current 24-hour trend shows some signs of a short-term promise. If the Cardano price surge is any indication, the situation will undoubtedly get pretty interesting moving forward.

To put all of this into perspective, the Cardano price has increased by 7.5% over the past 24 hours. This is a pretty spectacular gain, especially because the Cardano price recently took a serious beating. Over the course of the past seven days, the Cardano price has dropped from $0.24 all the way to $0.18 and is now slowly making its way back to $0.2.

It is also interesting to note how the Cardano price is rising thanks to solid gains over Bitcoin. The ADA/BTC ratio has improved by 6.57% over the past 24 hours, which further confirms today may result in some more positive momentum moving forward. Even so, cryptocurrencies are volatile first and foremost, and that situation will not necessarily change anytime soon.

With $133.559m in 24-hour trading volume, the global demand for Cardano isn’t necessarily all that great. Considering how all cryptocurrencies contend with massive reduced trading volume these past few weeks, it will be interesting to see how things evolve for ADA in this regard. The volume is, for now, sufficient to sustain this Cardano price momentum.

The way things stand right now, Upbit is generating the most ADA trading volume. It has a small lead over Binance’s BTC pair, and the company’s USDT pair is also in the top three. Further down the list, Huobi and Bittrex complete the five with their USDT and BTC pairs respectively. A fiat currency pair leading the charge for Cardano seems to hint at  a positive trend for the remainder of today,

Keeping everything in mind, it will be interesting to see how high the Cardano price will go. Any sort of positive momentum is usually pushed down pretty quickly in the cryptocurrency world these days. Assuming history repeats itself, this gain will be wiped out in pretty quick succession. If the situation turns out differently, the Cardano price could effectively surpass $0.2 pretty quickly.

Bitcoin Press Release: Crowdholding announces major updates, including Blockchain synergies to facilitate automatic cryptocurrency transfers.

May 22nd 2018, Prague, Czech Republic – Crowdholding’s platform upgrades and now YUP token payments are on the Ethereum Blockchain. Users can now instantly withdraw tokens earned as a reward for co-creating with businesses. More than 25 blockchain startups, including established ones such as Deep Onion, Intelligent Trading Foundation, and Peculium, award tokens for bounties on Crowdholding.

Ethan Clime, CEO of Crowdholding commented;

“We are on the verge of connecting users and businesses through smart contracts in a trusted and transparent environment, allowing tokens to seamlessly move from our clients to users through the Ethereum blockchain network.”

What is the YUP token?

The YUP token is built on the Ethereum platform and is used to access the Crowdholding ecosystem. Soon users will be able to use YUP to invest, purchase products and services. Businesses invest YUP and other ERC20 tokens to manage ideas and bounty campaigns as well as co-create with the community. As the interests of everyone are aligned, the larger the ecosystem, the more liquid and valuable YUP becomes. In the next few months we aim to grow to 10,000 daily active users and host over 100 businesses which we estimate will boost the YUP value significantly. The YUP token is already traded on 3 exchanges (IDEX, OctaEx, CoinHub).

How to earn YUP and other tokens without investing?

• Choose a task you would like to participate in.
• Offer a well-researched solution.
• Other users upvote the best solutions.
• The more upvotes you get – the more tokens you receive.

Why is Crowdholding Unique?

Crowdholding has grown exponentially since raising $2 million from their token sale in January 2018 and now has 17,000 signed-up users. This is because Crowdholding provides value beyond bounty campaigns, as the community can directly collaborate with blockchain startups to co-create, crowdfund and build better businesses.

Given the decentralized nature of blockchain projects, Crowdholding provides great value for both pre- and post-token sales projects helping to gain traction and raise awareness. Businesses can launch different types of tasks where supporters put their unique skills to work by contributing to the growth of various blockchain businesses in exchange for YUP and ERC20 tokens.

Ethan Clime stated;

“We are aiming to facilitate the world’s potential through co-creation. With 80% of the developed world going online, online communities are providing an astonishing way for people to interact with each other, learn new skills, solve issues and discuss and debate. Since July 2016 we have been working hard to create the perfect the co-creation platform for businesses and the community”.

Having made significant progress, the Crowdholding team is also working on launching a crowdfunding module, where users will be able to re-invest their YUP tokens into other blockchain projects.

Learn more on the Crowdholding Website – https://www.crowdholding.com/
Chat with the team on Telegram – https://t.me/Crowdholding
Follow on Twitter – https://twitter.com/crowdholding
Follow on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/Crowdholding/
Learn more on Medium – https://medium.com/@crowdholding

Media Contact
Contact Name: Kseniya Prydybailo
Contact Email: [email protected]

Crowdholding is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. Cryptocurrencies and tokens are extremely volatile. There is no guarantee of a stable value, or of any value at all. Token sales are only suitable for individuals with a high risk tolerance. Only participate in a token event with what you can afford to lose.This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.

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Blockchain platform EOS says serious vulnerabilities reported by an internet security firm just days before its mainnet launch have been fixed.

As Bitcoin slowly but steadily continues to lose value this month and with the rise of institutional investment in the space causing bulls to make predictions for the end of year prices that range from optimistic to seemingly delusional. Certainly no Bull The Motley Fool’s Sean Williams has made his own end of 2018 prediction list from which the following is abstracted.

Crypto Market Cap Will be Lower by Year’s End

The unstoppable crypto market in 2017 can be in part attributed to trading being done almost exclusively by retail traders who only saw profit on the upside which pushed the market cap higher and higher.  As access to institutional investors has increased through the first months of 2018 and with both the CME and CBoE listing Bitcoin futures investors can now make money on both the upside and downside of the crypto market. This should result in a steady decline of the market cap Williams predicts. It’s not exactly going out on a limb to suggest that the total market cap isn’t going to get back over $830 billion in the next six months.

Bitcoin Will Lose Half of its Value

Williams writes that he predicted Bitcoin would fall by half at the beginning of the year when it was just over $14,000 and since it has twice dropped to nearly $6,000 and is currently at about $7,000. He feels confident that it will fall by half again. Unsure of what the X factor causing the price plunge will be he posits increased regulation in a major trading country, institutional investing, or even Bitcoin’s slow transaction speeds.

Bitcoin Will Briefly Lose its Top Position to Another Altcoin

Citing the emotional tendency of cryptocurrency traders, Williams writes that he will stick by his other new year prediction that another coin, most likely Ethereum, will bypass Bitcoin if only momentarily. With a $70 billion market cap difference between the two of them Ethereum has a long row to hoe but Williams refers to Ethereum Alliance’s 500 members and the network’s utility as assets that could push Ether to a brief number one spot.

The US Will Expand Cryptocurrency Regulation

This is a no brainer as the Department of Justice, Securities Exchange Commission and North American Securities Administrators Association  have all been actively pursuing and punishing crypto and ICO related scams in the last month. In addition to this, Williams predicts that the Internal Revenue Service will increase regulation beyond ending the like-kind exchanges loophole and one of the federal regulatory bodies will increase transparency by forcing traders to verify bank accounts with exchanges, as already happening in South Korea.

A Bitcoin ETF Will Come to Market

The question of whether a Bitcoin elctrionic traded fund (ETF) would hit the market began as soon as the CBoE offered Bitcoin futures. The SEC waylaid it when it demanded answers to 31 questions that mostly dealt with custody. Williams assumes with increased regulation in the space the ETF will happen though which platform it will follow he isn’t willing to hazard a guess.

In summation Williams warns of the dangers inherent when investing in cryptocurrency writing that digital coins have no metrics that can be measured outside of transaction speed and daily trading percentages. That the backbone technology of all crypto projects, the blockchain as wonderful as it’s potential maybe, is untested in the real world of business. That in-spite of all the excitement surrounding the space he is going to leave his money safely on the side which may leave the reader thinking why write about the market at all if you have no skin in the game?

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The post Five More Crypto Predictions for the Rest of 2018 appeared first on NewsBTC.

Ever since Iranian Parliamentary Commission for Economic Affairs chairman Mohammad Reza Pourebrahimi declared recently that Iranians had moved USD 2.5 billion out of the country in cryptocurrency, the debate on digital currency has intensified, according to Cointelegraph.

In 2017, Iran began developing a local cryptocurrency which was launched earlier in May, although many are skeptical about its success. Venezuela and more recently, Russia, have expressed the merits of state-owned cryptocurrency as a possible sanction breaker.

The April announcement by Iran’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi that an experimental model of a state-run cryptocurrency was ready came as some surprise, given Iran’s current status regarding the trading of cryptocurrencies.

Iran’s Central Bank currently has a ban on cryptocurrency trading and stated recently:

“All branches of banks, credit institutions, and currency exchanges should stay clear of any sale or purchase of these currencies and avoid undertakings that facilitate or promote such currencies. Action will be taken against those who contravene the regulations.”

The current stance on cryptocurrency is very much seen as a government move to further regulate its fiat currency markets due to a slide in the value of the rial, Iran’s national currency. According to MENAfn, the rial has been nose-diving, mainly due to the threat of new US sanctions after President Trump’s recent withdrawal from the nuclear arms deal.

The financial situation is also exacerbated by a fear of an impending economic crisis and shrinking oil exports. As a result, Iran has now lowered the official value of the rial to 42,060 to the USD dollar with warnings that it could fall as much as 6% in the next fiscal year.

Another mitigating factor in the current ban on cryptocurrency is the relationship between the Iranian government and Islamic law. European University at Saint Petersburg senior lecturer of political economy Nikolay Kozhanov, an expert on Iranian external affairs, suggests:

“Iran is governed in accordance with Islamic laws, which heavily regulate the banking sphere. In general, Islamic economists ban everything that is not created by work. You cannot make ‘profit out of thin air’. To my understanding, to a certain extent, cryptocurrencies fall into that category.”

Iranian blockchain developer Arame Bandari feels that despite these difficulties, the country has kept pace with global developments, saying “…Iran has faced various type of sanctions during last 40 years, but you should consider that the Iranian young educated population has always adapted to the latest technological developments.”

However, he is quick to claim that further development of new technology has been aided by his government’s current position which seeks to promote education and tech development.

“During [the] last five years, we have witnessed a lot of good governmental support toward knowledge-based economy and we’ve observed that plenty of knowledge/technology-based SMEs [small to medium enterprises] have flourished.”

Cryptocurrency continues to be on standby, but given renewed sanctions, Iran may be forced to review its position regarding the future of the underlying technology and utilize its benefits.

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