With Russia's assistance, Iran's central bank is investigating the prospect of developing a gold-backed digital token to promote commerce in the Persian area and improve payment in an international settlement, Bitcoin.com reported on January 18.

Russia and Iran will be able to fix their currencies to the price of international gold using a stablecoin backed by gold. Other nations would be able to exchange this cryptocurrency among themselves using digital money without the involvement of outside parties.

To mint the digital currency, however, authorities would need to fully regulate cryptocurrencies in the first place.

Under Western economic and financial sanctions, Russia and Iran have been looking to cryptocurrencies to get around constraints. While Russia is considering allowing cross-border cryptocurrency payments, Iran placed its first formal import order in August using cryptocurrencies. The two countries are also developing the digital ruble and the crypto rial, two central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Notably, PAX Gold, an Ethereum blockchain-based ERC20 token, with a market valuation of over $511,000,000 is recognized as the largest digital gold-backed coin and is now ranked 74th in capitalization.