IFP - The Central Bank of Iran says it has never recognized bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as official currency within the boundaries of the Islamic Republic and conducts no transactions in them.�



In a recent statement, the central bank rejected as baseless the reports on its role in the sales of and transactions in cryptocurrencies.

�The wild fluctuations of the digital currencies along with competitive business activities underway via network marketing and pyramid scheme have made the market of these currencies highly unreliable and risky,� the central bank was quoted as saying in a Farsi report by the�Iran�newspaper�s website.

The central bank also warned the Iranian citizens about the high risks of making investment in the volatile market of the digital currencies saying they �may lose their financial assets.�

The Central Bank of Iran says it is cooperating with other institutions to develop a new mechanism to control and prevent digital currencies in Iran.

Iran�s ICT Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi also declared on Wednesday that Iran�s Post Bank is working on a locally-developed cryptocurrency, which needs to be tested by the ICT ministry.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and worldwide payment system. It is the first decentralized digital currency. Its conception is peer-to-peer and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary.

These transactions are verified by network nodes through the use of cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a block-chain.