Today in Crypto: Iran to Launch Pilot Crypto-Rial

Central Bank of Iran said it will begin a pilot launch of its central bank digital currency, the crypto-rial, on Thursday (Sept. 22), a press release said.

The crypto-rial’s goal will be to turn banknotes into programmable entity, and it will reportedly be high security. The crypto-rial is designed so it’s easy to track, so even if the data on the smart phones are hacked, the crypto-rial can’t be tracked.

In other news, Democrats have been pushing for the U.S. Federal Reserve to move forward on a digital dollar, though negotiations have only ended with a directive for a new study, Coindesk wrote.

The study will be part of the year’s effort by legislature to regulate stablecoins in a new House bill, which is circulating among lawmakers and the industry. It won’t represent the authorization the Fed needs to issue a CBDC, though.

The federal government has been getting closer to an approval, and the U.S. Treasury Department has recently said that work on a digital dollar should keep going while the executive branch comes to a decision.

Additionally, the U.K. has plans to become a crypto hub, even in spite of its recent change in leadership, a report from Coindesk said.

The U.K. government will be going forward with ex-Finance Minister Rishi Sunak’s plans to become a crypto hub, according to new economic secretary to the Treasury Richard Fuller. His comments signaled something of a relief to the blockchain community in the country, who were hoping for the kinds of innovation-friendly regulations that could move things forward.

Sunak resigned in July, however.

Finally, numerous U.S. bank heads have said as of Wednesday (Sept. 21) that they have no plans to finance cryptocurrency miners, Coindesk reported.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), a critic of mining, asked the heads of three major banks, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, if they intended to finance crypto mining, and all of them answered in the negative.

Raising capital has been hard for miners this year, as bitcoin’s price has fallen and energy prices have risen. The solutions have included Maple Finance starting a $300 million lending pool for midsize bitcoin miners in North America and Australia.