According to reports, the Central Bank of Iran is cooperating with the Russian government to issue a new stablecoin backed by gold. The stablecoin would apparently aim to facilitate cross-border transactions, and would potentially operate in certain specific regions, like Astrakhan near the Caspian Sea, where Russia is beginning to open up to Iranian cargo shipments. In the words of a Russian news agency, the move would create a “token of the Persian Gulf” that would be enabled as a payment method in foreign trade.
However, the project will only be able to move forward, says lawmaker Anton Tkachev, if the digital asset market becomes fully regulated in Russia; the country’s lower house of Parliament has once again promised in January that it would begin to debate regulate crypto transactions this year. Both Iran and Russian have had a somewhat contradictory approach to crypto management, as both countries have banned their residents from using crypto for payments, but at the same time are also looking to adopt crypto as a tool of foreign trade.
