attention
There are two very serious risks currently facing cryptocurrency activists in Iran that must be taken into account:
1- Tether company is the owner of stablecoin Tether or USDT, an American company. Tether structure is fully centralized and controllable. In Smart Contracts related to Tether, there is a function to lock existing Tethers in their desired addresses. That is, if they want, they can easily lock the user’s Tether even in the user’s own wallet. Until now, only 477 accounts have been blocked in the Ethereum network (source), so they have this possibility. The fact that this has not happened so far because of the Iranian identity is not a guarantee that it will not happen in the future. Considering the growth of cryptocurrencies in Iran, a significant part of the total 60 billion dollars of Tether in circulation belongs to Iranian users or companies and exchanges.
But the important point and the difference between now and the past is that the CypherTrace company, which is a partner of the United States of America, published a list of bitcoin addresses belonging to Iranians some time ago. Recognize the geographical addresses of the wallets.
In a situation where companies like Cyphertrees or Google and Users can be recognized by the color of their socks with data analysis. At any moment, due to sanctions, Tether may be locked in a list of addresses that are likely to be Iranian. This is a very serious risk and if it happens, it will cause a lot of damage to cryptocurrency activists in Iran. Except for Tether, all other centralized stablecoins have this risk
Decentralized stablecoins have their own complexity and technical risks, so they are not recommended for the general public, while they have low transaction volume and low supply and demand.
2- Unfortunately, the news indicates that exchanges, including Binance, are cooperating with CypherTrace. This means that soon all the risk of item 1 will affect all the cryptocurrencies in foreign exchanges.
International exchanges are required to comply with anti-money laundering laws and perform KYC, and sooner or later they will be required to identify the identity and geographic location of users in cooperation with companies such as CypherTrace. Unfortunately, the evidence shows that cryptocurrency activists in Iran keep a large amount of their cryptocurrencies in long-term exchanges such as Binance, despite repeated warnings and training. The emergence and seriousness of the presence of companies like Cyphertris in the world of cryptocurrencies is a new event, so the upcoming events may not be compared with the experiences of the last few years and we may be surprised.
Question: Will foreign exchanges notify before possible blocking?
Answer: There is no obligation in this regard. They may do this and they may not.
Question: Has a foreign currency exchange ever blocked someone’s account due to Iranian identity? Answer: Yes, this has happened many times.
Question: Has the Tether company ever frozen the wallet due to Iranian identity detection?
Answer: No. But as long as we are sanctioned, there is no guarantee or assurance that we will not be blocked in the future.
Question: What should we use instead of Tether?
Answer: I have not found a solution that does not have risks and is not complicated on the other hand and is accepted by most exchanges and has a high supply and demand. The best and safest currency in the crypto market is Bitcoin, but it is not stable and has the risk of price fluctuations
This post is written by Mr_Rabert