... after Venezuela petro success

Iran's Minister of Information and Communications Technology said the test model for a digital currency is currently under development.

Following the launch of Venezuela's cryptocurrency, the Petro, earlier this week, Russia and Iran have both expressed interest in developing their own digital currencies to help combat United States imposed sanctions. Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, head of Iran's Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, said the test model for a “cloud-based digital currency” is currently under development and will be submitted to the Iranian bank system soon.

The Iranian official announced the move following a meeting with the state-owned Post Bank of Iran on Wednesday, according to NPR.

However, the Central Bank of Iran contradicted the optimistic news as soon as reports came out about the possibility of a state-sponsored cryptocurrency. Iran Front Page News reported that the central bank emphasized the “highly unreliable and risky” nature of the digital currency market, as well as warning citizens that they “may lose their financial assets” in an economic realm rife with “pyramid scheme”-like businesses.

"In a meeting with the Board of Directors of the Bank on post-digital currencies based on the blockchain, I... prescribed, the Bank measures to implement the country's first cloud-based digital currency... An experimental model for the country's banking system to the examination and approval will be provided," Azari Jahromi said in this translated tweet.

Meanwhile, Simon Zerpa Delgado, Venezuela's Financial Minister, was in Russia this week where he spoke with officials about strengthening their collaboration. During the talks, the subject of the South American country's newly-launched cryptocurrency came up.

"In this meeting, we have reviewed the economic and financial cooperation between the two countries, with emphasis on the new cryptocurrency of Venezuela: the Petro. We delivered updated information to Minister Anton Siluanov about our cryptocurrency," Delgado tweeted.

Russian officials have previously exchanged ideas about issuing some kind of digital-ruble to circumvent U.S. sanctions, according to The New York Times.

China and Singapore have also expressed interest in creating their own form of cryptocurrency, however experts say the nations will wait to judge Venezuela's economic success before bringing their own bitcoins to market.

Responding to the interest in cryptocurrencies by countries bearing sanctions from the United States and European Union, Mati Greenspan, a senior market analyst at social trading firm eToro, called it an “excellent idea. Putin and Maduro have very similar problems,” referring to the presidents of Russias and Venezuela, respectively.

"They both have a high dependence on the price of crude oil, which has been rather unstable in the last few years. They both have issues with U.S. sanctions and with the U.S. dollar being the world reserve currency."

"To think that of all the governments and banks who are toying with the idea it would be Nicolas Maduro who gets there first," said Greenspan.

Maduro said Thursday that his government has raised US$1 billion in the first two days of its Petro cryptocurrency sale.