Iran leads push for a crypto within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Iran is pitching the idea of creating a cryptocurrency to serve the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a major regional organization for economic and other cooperation.

The proposal comes amid changing attitudes towards digital assets in the Islamic republic and some of its partners that have been dealing with banking restrictions.

Tehran seeks SCO crypto to circumvent sanctions

Iran is trying to convince other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that a new cryptocurrency under their control would help them trade without Western interference.

The country’s First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref has just proposed to jointly create a coin to enhance ties between nations participating in the format, such as China, Russia and India.

Speaking at the latest summit of the SCO heads of government in Moscow on Tuesday, Aref argued that such digital currency has the potential to streamline economic exchange, boost trust and increase transparency among them.

Implementing the common crypto would ultimately foster integration in the region and help reach goals aimed at ensuring sustainable development, he underscored.

Quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA, the vice president also urged colleagues to join forces on establishing what he described as more efficient interbank messaging mechanisms.

He issued the call while highlighting the need for an independent financial system amid rapid changes in the global economy.

Regional financial frameworks, Aref elaborated, can counteract pressures from the West, which he accused of exploiting existing international banking systems.

The SCO is a Eurasian organization for political, economic, and security cooperation. It has 10 members, including Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus, besides the already mentioned major powers.

Its roots trace back to the Shanghai Five, a group formed by the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, and three other former Soviet republics in the mid-90s. Iran is among its newer members after joining in the summer of 2023.

SCO is the world’s largest regional body in terms of geography and population. As of last year, it combined nominal gross domestic product accounted for approximately 23% of the global GDP.

In his address, Mohammad-Reza Aref expressed the support of the Iranian government for establishing a development bank under the organization. It would fund infrastructure projects and, in his words, “reduce reliance on unfair global financial systems.”

The Iranian official also urged accelerating his country’s membership in the SCO Interbank Consortium, which is currently financing joint projects.

Iran is taking the path of crypto adoption

During the meeting with the SCO prime ministers in the Russian capital, Iran’s vice president also reiterated that the Islamic Republic is ready to enhance collaboration in the fintech space to facilitate financial transactions among the partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

His government has lately been changing its attitude towards new financial technologies, and most notably regarding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), as reported by Cryptopolitan.

During a recent blockchain conference in Tehran, Iran’s first international event of this kind, officials spoke of decentralized digital money as a means to strengthen their nation’s financial independence and set crypto regulation as a priority.

In an address to attendees, the Speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, emphasized that Iran wouldn’t be able to meet its development goal of making 10% of its economy digital without embracing crypto.

The notion was backed by other representatives of the government and the legislature, such as the chairman of the parliamentary economic committee, Shamseddin Hosseini, who agreed that reaching the target “is impossible without crypto assets.”

“Cryptocurrencies provide new ways to do business and to pay for trade,” Ghalibaf also said at the forum attended by delegates from over a dozen countries, including members of the BRICS group of emerging economies. The head of the Majlis urged the latter to use crypto in their transactions.

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