Cryptocurrency Exchange Archives - Page 2 of 2

Iran Official Interested

His name is Alireza Daliri, and he is a Deputy for Management Development and Resources at the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology. He was quick to point out that other countries were already benefiting from blockchain, stating: “Over 140 countries are now benefiting from blockchain technology around the world.”

While he acknowledged that there was risk involved, he declared that while some governments are concerned about blockchain technology, “its benefits are more than its damages”, while also pointing out that blockchain could “decrease bureaucratic procedures”, as well.

Iran and Crypto

Iran seems to view cryptocurrency as a positive way to spur innovation. Daliri was supposedly behind the scenes with regards to laying groundwork for possibly creating a new national cryptocurrency in order to circumvent U.S. sanctions. The national cryptocurrency would be backed by the official currency of Iran, the rial.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

The plans were supposedly even approved by Hassan Rouhani, the current president of Iran. An individual by the name of Saeed Mahdiyoun, the deputy director of the Supreme Cyberspace Council, confirmed these plans months ago, but did not elaborate.

While Iran might utilize blockchain technology in various ways – the investor/trader climate in Iran is not looking so great in Iran since Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily volume, recently warned its users to withdraw their capital.

This is a result of U.S. sanctions, which activated on November 5. Iranian Binance users received an email, stating: “If you have an account with Binance and fall into that [sanctions] category, please withdraw your assets from Binance as soon as possible,” reads an email received in recent days by Iranian users, according to several local sources.

The CEO, Vlad Nistor, of Romanian cryptocurrency exchange CoinFlux was recently arrested according to local Romanian news outlets several days ago. Specifically, Nistor was detained in the city of Cluj-Napoca on Tuesday. The outlets also report that he is awaiting extradition to the United States.

Vistor will reportedly be charged with fraud, computer fraud, money laundering, and possibly additional charges. It should be noted that Coinflux is not, by any means, a major cryptocurrency exchange that is known globally. In fact, the volume associated with the exchange is so small that it doesn’t even register on Coinmarketcap. However, the arrest of any CEO of a cryptocurrency exchange could be damaging to the reputation of the cryptocurrency markets as a whole.

Nature of Arrest

An editorial for a local Romanian newspaper seemed to take issue with the way that the arrest was handled, suggesting that the arrest and extradition might be “unfair”. Specifically, the rough translation was as follows:

“Either Romanian Vlad Nistor rushed USSS guest starters yesterday morning, packed him tonight, and today he wants to pack him in the United States. Nobody opposes extradition from the Romanian authorities, even though the Romanian citizen is only in a criminal investigation stage – no one knows why he is accused (yesterday even the defenders hadt no idea what to build their minimal defense). Well, how about human rights, the right to an equitable judge, the equality of arms, and so on?”

CoinFlux Consequences

The bank accounts of Coinflux have now been officially frozen. The exchange did not seem to acknowledge the CEO arrest on social media previously, but now has recognized that there is an investigation. Specifically, the Coinflux team stated that they are in the “unpleasant situation of temporarily stopping any digital currency exchanges.”

The cryptocurrency exchange marketed itself as a platform to buy, sell and trade well-known cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), and Litecoin (LTC). The website states now that “buying and selling has been temporarily disabled” on the main page of its website.

Alexandru Coman of Coinflux offered this statement, that seemed to understand the gravity of the situation: “We are aware that this is a worrisome situation for the people who placed their trust in our service, and we assure each and every one of them that we will do everything that’s up to us to fix this unfair situation.”