In 2018, Iran recognized cryptocurrency mining as a legal industry in order to monitor and regulate the mining farms that were already operating. [1] In July 2018, President Hassan Rouhani's administration declared its intention of launching a national cryptocurrency, a news agency affiliated with the Central Bank of Iran outlined multiple features of the national cryptocurrency, stating that it would be backed by the Iran's national currency, the rial. [2] The cryptocurrency could allow Iranians to make international transactions amidst trade embargo. As of December 2020 Iranians traded between $16 and $20 million in 12 different cryptocurrencies each day. [3] [4] [5] Iran's mining amount of bitcoin is close to $1 billion a year. [6]
On December 27th 2024 Iranian regime's Central Bank's new program effectively blocked all Iranian cryptocurrency to rial and vice versa payments through internet websites in Iran. [7] [8] In January 2025 the central bank began unblocking cryptomoney to fiat traders exchanges with their own government API for full access to user data. [9]
Rial Currency will be the digital currency of the Central Bank of Iran, which is considered as electronic cash and will be the electronic version of common banknotes in Iran. Its value is also attached to the existing traditional paper rial. According to the emphasis of the Central Bank of Iran, Rial Currency, unlike cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, cannot be mined and its supply will be regulated by this bank. "arzdigital news". 20 August 2022.[ citation needed ]
The Reuters news agency published a report that the leading crypto exchange Binance had processed $7.8 billion worth of transactions from Iranian firms since 2018 despite US financial sanctions. In this report, the relationship between Binance and Nobitex is discussed. [10] Nobitex has responded to the Reuters claim that the exchange was used to skirt sanctions against Iran in relationship with Binance. [11]
A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may accept credit card payments, wire transfers or other forms of payment in exchange for digital currencies or cryptocurrencies. A cryptocurrency exchange can be a market maker that typically takes the bid–ask spreads as a transaction commission for its service or, as a matching platform, simply charges fees.
Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, an unknown entity. Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009, with the release of its open-source implementation. In 2021, El Salvador adopted it as legal tender. It is mostly seen as an investment and has been described by some scholars as an economic bubble. As bitcoin is pseudonymous, its use by criminals has attracted the attention of regulators, leading to its ban by several countries as of 2021.
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or colloquially, crypto, is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.
The legal status of cryptocurrencies varies substantially from one jurisdiction to another, and is still undefined or changing in many of them. Whereas, in the majority of countries the usage of cryptocurrency isn't in itself illegal, its status and usability as a means of payment varies, with differing regulatory implications.
Circle is a peer-to-peer payments technology company that now manages stablecoin USDC, a cryptocurrency the value of which is pegged to the U.S. dollar. It was founded by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville in October 2013. Circle is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. USDC, the second largest stablecoin worldwide, is designed to hold at or near a stable price of $1. The majority of its stablecoin collateral is held in short-term U.S. government securities.
Monero is a cryptocurrency which uses a blockchain with privacy-enhancing technologies to obfuscate transactions to achieve anonymity and fungibility. Observers cannot decipher addresses trading Monero, transaction amounts, address balances, or transaction histories.
Kraken is a United States–based cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2011. It was one of the first bitcoin exchanges to be listed on Bloomberg Terminal and was valued at US$3 billion in January 2024. The company has been the subject of several regulatory investigations since 2018, and has agreed to cumulative fines of over $30 million. It was the first cryptocurrency company to obtain a bank charter.
Digital Currency Group Inc. (DCG) is a venture capital company focusing on the digital currency market. It is located in Stamford, Connecticut. The company has the subsidiaries Foundry, Genesis, Grayscale Investments, and Luno. It also formerly owned CoinDesk.
Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange owned and operated by iFinex Inc, and is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Bitfinex was founded in 2012. It was originally a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange, and later added support for other cryptocurrencies.
Tether is a cryptocurrency stablecoin launched by Tether Limited Inc. in 2014.
A cryptocurrency bubble is a phenomenon where the market increasingly considers the going price of cryptocurrency assets to be inflated against their hypothetical value. The history of cryptocurrency has been marked by several speculative bubbles on a boom to bust cycle.
Binance Holdings Ltd., branded Binance, is a global company that operates the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies. Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, a developer who had previously created high-frequency trading software. Binance was initially based in China, then moved to Japan shortly before the Chinese government restricted cryptocurrency companies. Binance subsequently left Japan for Malta and currently has no official company headquarters.
Cryptocurrency and crime describe notable examples of cybercrime related to theft of cryptocurrencies and some methods or security vulnerabilities commonly exploited. Cryptojacking is a form of cybercrime specific to cryptocurrencies used on websites to hijack a victim's resources and use them for hashing and mining cryptocurrency.
Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as CZ, is a Chinese-born Canadian businessman. Zhao is the co-founder and former CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume as of July 2024. He resigned as the CEO in November 2023 after pleading guilty to a money laundering charge in the United States and was sentenced to four months in prison in April 2024 and completed his sentence by September of the same year.
FTX Trading Ltd., trading as FTX, is a bankrupt company that formerly operated a cryptocurrency exchange and crypto hedge fund. The exchange was founded in 2019 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang and collapsed in 2022 after massive fraud perpetrated by Bankman-Fried and his partner Caroline Ellison forced the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The general notion of cryptocurrencies in Europe denotes the processes of legislative regulation, distribution, circulation, and storage of cryptocurrencies in Europe. In April 2023, the EU Parliament passed the Markets in Crypto Act (MiCA) unified legal framework for crypto-assets within the European Union.
Celsius Network LLC was a cryptocurrency company. Headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey, Celsius maintained offices in four countries and operated globally. Users could deposit a range of cryptocurrency digital assets, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, into a Celsius wallet to earn a percentage yield, and could take out loans by pledging their cryptocurrencies as security. As of May 2022, the company had lent out $8 billion to clients and had almost $12 billion in assets under management.
The Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange was hacked in August 2016. 119,756 bitcoins, worth about US$72 million at the time, was stolen.
Cryptocurrency in Iran has emerged as a pivotal response to economic pressures and global isolation. Iran's interest in cryptocurrencies began in 2017 when international sanctions obstructed Iran's access to the global financial markets. Iran's cryptocurrency market faces challenges like high energy costs and the involvement of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in illicit activities On December 27th 2024 Iranian regime's Central Bank's new program effectively blocked all Iranian cryptocurrency to rial and vice versa payments through internet websites in Iran.January 2025 the central bank began unblocking cryptomoney to fiat traders exchanges with their own government API for full access to user data.
Bitcoin and politics influence each other in several ways. Governments of several countries use Bitcoin in various capacities, and some politicians use Bitcoin in their electoral programs.