Iran’s central bank using vast quantities of cryptocurrency championed by Farage, says report
What is this? FarageCoin is being used to beat sanctions?
Iran’s central bank appears to have been using vast quantities of a cryptocurrency championed by Nigel Farage, according to a new report.
Some close connection perhaps?
“I’m going to go tomorrow to say this,” Farage told LBC radio. “You know, Tether is a stablecoin. Stablecoins are the way which money goes from conventional currencies through into cryptocurrencies and back again. Tether is about to be valued as a $500bn company.”
Farage criticised Bailey for imposing restrictions on crypto and urged the UK to catch up with the US, where Donald Trump, who chose Howard Lutnick, Tether’s banker, as his commerce secretary, has reversed efforts to police digital currencies.
Farage added: “You know, stablecoins, crypto – this world is enormous, and I’ve been urging for years that London should embrace it. We should become a global trading centre for this stuff, under proper regulation.”
One of Tether’s major shareholders, the tech investor Christopher Harborne, is Reform’s biggest donor.
Stablecoins are an issue and one where there is a discussion to be had with central banks about regulation. Not this is entirely seprate from Bitcoin etc.
Elliptic, a crypto analytics company, said it had traced at least $507m (£377m) of cryptocurrency issued by Tether – a company touted by the Reform UK leader – passing through accounts that appear to be controlled by Iran’s central bank.
Elliptic’s report tracked what it says is the Iranian central bank’s “systematic accumulation” of Tether stablecoins, a type of crypto that is pegged to the dollar so it can easily be exchanged for hard currency.
There’s around $190 billion of Tether in issuance. Iran, apparently, has $500 millkon of it. So, some naughty boys have 0.25% of a currency in issue. This poses questdions – deeply troubling ones – about a politician who muses of regulation of this new and important thing.
The representative said Tether followed US sanctions guidelines. “We work closely with law enforcement globally to identify and promptly, upon request, freeze assets to prevent further movement whenever they are identified to be in connection to illegal activity or illicit actors.”
Ho, right. It’s just that they’re desperate, see? ‘Bout Farage, noT Iran, obvs.
Guardianistas: you’d feel sorry for them if they weren’t such shitbags.
One of Tether’s major shareholders, the tech investor Christopher Harborne, is Reform’s biggest donor.
I’m Dale Vince and I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, at the thought of donors influencing political parties.
Stale Mince has benefited to the tume of £145 million from government subsidies
But that is different of course because he is virtuous
We’ve got another 3.5 years of this anti Farage noise with the intensity, frequency and probably bonkerness increasing.
I suppose on the plus side those who wouldn’t never vote for Farage wouldn’t vote for him anyway but everyone else will get enured to the the stories, so even if they do find some dirt it will be lost in the noise.
As was pointed out on X by Christian Calgie from the Expres after Lisa Nandy became the latest cabinet minister to claim Farage would be a fascist PM:
(No link because even time I try to add a link I start getting invalid email address rejections and I have to clear out the cache)
I don’t have an ‘authoritative dictionary’ to hand – perhaps Theophrastus can show us his – but even the UN accepts the existence of the ‘Motivation of leading actors in the State/region; acts which serve to encourage divisions between national, racial, ethnic, and religious groups’, including
It is, per the above UN document, ‘a common strategy to create divisions by fabricating events whereby a person accuses others of what he or she does or wants to do’.
Of course, this sort of underhand tactic would never be used by the British government against its own people.
Iran’s central bank also holds $billions of Gold and has speculated massively in recent years
Mr Farage has a job at Direct Bullion
Just saying 😉
I’d argue that stablecoins are a cryptographic transfer system not a currency.
Tech Secretary Liz Kendall champions new tech. Russia and Iran are using new tech to do bad things. Liz bad person
Jerome Powell champions sound money and independent central bank. Trump wants to buy Greenland with said money. Therefore Powell very bad man.
All of this is to try to push Farage into following the Uniparty directives to make him “electable”.
It seems to be working, between purges and the recent prodigal son welcoming of a prominent Tory.
Though that may just be his own urge to control what he sees as his personal political party.
Nazi Germany used a fiat currency, therefore fiat currencies and the governments that issue them are evil.
Well jgh, considering the mess we’re in wit such currencies…
Mussolini used a FIAT currency.
Ah, stable coins. The thing that the last and current UK governments are encouraging a sterling backed version of:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/22/tether-stablecoin-tied-to-pound-uk-crypto-currency
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/paper/2025/cp/proposed-regulatory-regime-for-sterling-denominated-systemic-stablecoins
The current Uk government also holds 61,000 Bitcoins as well, which by my maths is worth over $5bn, so is it complicit in this conspiracy to promote crypto currency as well?
Who the fuck’s idea was that one? And these people call themselves economists?
Buying something at £x and selling it for more is perfectly sensible.
Of course, that depends on
a) what price you buy at
and
b) what price you sell at.
Governments invest in all sorts of shit and would be stupid not to get into bitcoin in at least a small way, as are any investors, contingent on the above questions.
They didn’t buy it, they nicked it off someone else. Some Chinese women had it confiscated from her under proceeds of crime laws.
And if that Chinese woman dies without giving away her password then that Bitcoin becomes worthless. I wonder how Bitcoin works in a will, it’s not like handing over your house to your kids, if your password key isn’t recorded then no-one gets it.
They certainly won’t be holding it in the same address as the Chinese woman. Someone who knows what they’re doing will have transferred it to a government controlled address.
They’re certainly complicit in “promoting the Dark Web” , and “promoting money laundering”…
Mind.. given that BTC are basically “Trading Cards”…. You could list them under “valued goods of speculative nature” , like “Art” …
Then again… “Art” , especially stuff that’s been deemed “valuable enough” to be held by a major central bank/Tax institution with a track record, still has *some* intrinsic value.
Nerd Collectors are… tenacious.. So while the market for Trading Cards isn’t as insane as it was, it’s…Stable… Like Comic Books.
BTC…. much of its value is people banking on it to be “made into proper currency” , One Day. When Rainbows Shine and Pigs Fly..
And I can’t see that happening. Not for BTC.
Nor even “stablecoins”, which is just a way to “evade” the problem of actually spending them. There isn’t a central point to actually turn them into [backing currence here]. Especially not without Questions and Taxes for big amounts….
Only Idjits, or Big Players seeking to concentrate them, accept them as actual currency.
Can’t use them for Daily Shopping.
Big ( speculative) retail ( GPU’s and other “fashionable” electronics mainly) got burnt over the past decade and won’t accept Crypto of any kind anymore.
BTC…. much of its value is people banking on it to be “made into proper currency” , One Day. When Rainbows Shine and Pigs Fly..
All of its value is. Virtually none of it is being used in commerce. It’s current price is entirely based on speculation that in the future it might be. Which at that price leads to a very small maybe. The most likely outcome is the BTC price will run to zero.
Important thing to understand is BTC is not an asset. It has no underlying value. And a currency divorced from commerce is not a currency. So it’s a nothing. Pure opinion.
As far as I can work out, stablecoins do have the potential to be used as a currency. The current price is the exchange value for the dollar. But they have a utility value of being able to be used for anonymizing transactions on top of their dollar value. So if they were circulating in commerce without the dollar interface being utilised they would establish their own value against goods/services independent of the dollar value. Thus they become a genuine independent currency
The question with all crypto is how fast and how cheaply you can verify them.
Credit cards are verified in one of two ways: 1) having the chip (which is hard to reproduce) or 2) sending card and CVV to the issuer (and the card issuer applies an algorithm to card and CVV to verify). Both are very fast. Crypto isn’t.
This is why crypto is mostly used for ransoms, drug deals, porn. Stuff that you don’t want the government or your wife to know about. For everything else, Visa and Mastercard are cheaper.
This is why crypto is mostly used for ransoms, drug deals, porn. Stuff that you don’t want the government or your wife to know about.
Exactly.And that has a value. So if you were talking about a transferable stablecoin, that value would be on top of its dollar value.
Yeeeeees. You get interest on currency. In stablecoins – which is why it’s so damn profitable to make one – that interest accrues to the creater of the stablecoin, not the holder of the stablecoin.
The economics of Tether – they sell the coin for a $. They bank the $ and collect interest (OK, mebbe 4% holding short term US Treasuries). They’ve issued $200 billion, they get $8 billion a year. They have 200 employees or so. It’s a grand business.
That $8 billion a year they also then invest in other stuff, riskier stuff.
Sure Tim. seigniorage. Can’t see any objection to that. The value of transacting in the coin would be much larger. Depends of the velocity it’s traveling around in commerce. But it should be a lot greater than 4%/pa.
Nothing comes for nothing, after all.
And they only get to make the seigniorage the once. If the coin is useful you can expect the value to rise. So it could rise multiple times it’s issue value, whilst the issuers are only getting their rapidly less valuable 4% as inflation hits government money.
Inflation is contrived government shit to suit government. A good currency should deflate as productivity rises.
Yes, I’ve often gone down that particular rabbit hole. Prices of many things should fall reflecting reducing real factor costs.
It did after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and after WW1. It was only the Attlee government that caused inflation after WW2 when the natural process would have been disinflation (deflation usually means a fall in GDP rather than a fall in prices).
“they sell the coin for a $. They bank the $ and collect interest”
That’s how Jersey run their currency; their government issues paper notes for £, buys UK government gilts with it, and collects the interest. The currency is stable to sterling because it’s 100% backed.
What’s clever with these new things is taking that long-standing small government practice and turning it into a private sector one.
Didn’t know that. I wondered where the cash to run the government came from.
Yes. The problem is, well, how much crypto do you need for all of that? Especially as it solves a transient problem. You ask for crypto, and as soon as you get it you transfer it to dollars.
Most of this is just being held not used. Which I think might mean it will all go the way of Beanie Babies at some point.
I think you missed the point, WB. The point of the exercise is to destroy government money. Make it die, shit stuff that it is.
A currency should be valued by the goods/services it can be exchanged for. That’s it. The number of individual tokens of value circulating is relevant. Commerce will value them correctly.
Big Pharma, where’s the FDS vaccine?
Shouldn’t these same people be campaigning to stop aid charities using dollars because Orange Man Bad?