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Many of you are probably familiar with Telegram, a chat app that allows you to access all kinds of different channels and gather information about some of your favorite topics. You can talk to anyone in the world using Telegram, but the app offers much more than just chat options – it has its own encryption.
Unfortunately, not everyone is happy with this. The Iranian nation, which has had a rather mixed negative relationship with cryptocurrencies, is now banning access to Telegram in its attempts to repress the use of digital resources, which regulators claim to bring criminal activity to Iran .
Javad Javidnia, secretary of the Task Force for the definition of criminal content, states that anyone captured using Telegram in Iran or using Gram – the app's cryptocurrency – will be subject to national security laws and receive appropriate punishment.
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In addition, regulators will also see action as a means of disrupting the national economy. It's kind of a stern move on their part, but in any case, users can expect to see officials knock down the hammer if they come out of their place.
Javidnia explains:
"One of the most important factors in banning Telegram was the sense of a serious economic threat from its activities, which was unfortunately marginalized and neglected due to the clamor in the political atmosphere of the country".
Who else has a revenge against Telegram?
Iran is not the only region to look from the top down to Telegram and consider it a national threat. Also in Russia, Telegram was banned when, in 2018, the chat application had its initial money offer (ICO). Russian officials said they were worried about the fund-raising plan due to potential fraud and poor investor security.
Read: The ICO of Telegram has raised so far a substantial $ 1.7 billion
Iran believes that the entry of Telegram into the blockchain space and cryptocurrency could "undermine Iran's national currency". The country is subject to severe sanctions set by President Donald Trump and the United States and has suffered inflationary and economic damage.
Iran has never appreciated the digital currency
To be honest, however, Iran has always had a particularly negative attitude towards cryptocurrency, having come to the point of limiting access to cryptocurrency trade in 2018 thanks, in part, to the growing popularity of bitcoin. among the residents of the country.
At the same time, however, the country has been discussing the notion of building its own cryptocurrency for years as a way of avoiding sanctions in the future, although it seems that officials do not want to interfere with competition. Reportedly, the country's central bank is collaborating with other institutions to control the influx of digital currencies into Iran such as bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin to discourage their use and induce residents to consider national virtual currency as their only payment option.
The fight continues for Crypto
Last February, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, Minister of the Ministry of Information & Communications, published the following message on Twitter:
"At a meeting with the Post Bank board of digital currencies based on the blockchain, I prescribed measures to implement the first cloud-based digital currency in the country."
In 2017, the country temporarily limited access to Telegram and the social media giant Instagram after a nationwide protest. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also imposed a total ban on the use of Telegram by government officials following the dissolution of the protest.
Iran is not the only rogue nation trying to extract its cryptocurrency from a hat. 2018 was saturated with stories about Venezuela and the petro, a digital resource that the presumed president Nicolas Maduro supported from the country's many oil reserves. The currency has generated controversy throughout the industry and petro-trading has been officially banned in the United States.
