Iranian authorities said that cryptocurrency mining has caused power outages in the country. Now Iran’s president said that mining will be totally banned until September this year approaching Iranian miners to stop.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Although a few days ago the Government of Iran granted permission to operate 30 Bitcoin mining farms, now the first vice president of Iran, Eshaq Jahangiri, has asked all cryptocurrency miners that operate legally in the country to stop mining. completely.
According to the authorities, the decision responds to the impact that mining activity has had on the country’s electricity consumption, and also to the fact that many unlicensed miners have illegally taken advantage of the electricity grid, causing major blackouts nationwide.
Even the Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, Mohammad Shariatmadari, said a two-hour blackout was at his home.
As CriptoDeFinance reported, new farms and power plants joined in this activity thanks to Iran granting permits to mine bitcoin in the country. Even the Thermal Power Plant Holding Company (TPPH), in charge of distributing and managing the development of the 129 public and private power plants in the country, auctioned off electricity from the Ramin, Neka, and Shahid Montazeri plants.
Jahangiri said that due to the blackouts, they seek to control electricity consumption, which will continue until early August:
We will make sure that there are no cuts in essential and important places. Licensed miners must also stop production entirely.
The current situation has led authorities to raid mining equipment and has even imposed heavy financial penalties on those caught mining even when they have a license. According to the authorities, bitcoin mining threatens the energy supply for the rest of the year, in addition to the prolonged drought in the country and the increase in energy demand for the summer.
President Hassan Rouhani said in May that cryptocurrency mining would be banned in the country until September to conserve energy during the summer months.
The controversy surrounding Bitcoin mining in Iran
Iran turned to digital assets as an alternative to evade US economic blockades that affect financial transactions and the oil sector. They have even authorized commercial banks to pay for imports with bitcoin.
The legalization of mining in Iran occurred in 2019, as long as the miners who are in the territory are licensed and sell all their bitcoins to the Central Bank of Iran. Bitcoins purchased by the authorities are used exclusively as an international currency in the country’s import market, which has suggested that the government intends to save assets for the long term.
The measure also prohibits transactions with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies that are mined or extracted outside the country, with which many users do not agree. According to data from the University of Cambridge, Bitcoin mining increased from 1.74% to 3.8% in Iran in just seven months.
The Government of Iran has indicated that efforts to regulate bitcoin mining are intended to minimize capital flight due to the loss of value of the rial, the national currency.
Likewise, the Tasnim News Agency, of that country, reported that the Economy Commission of the Iranian Parliament delivered a bill that seeks to make the Central Bank of Iran, the regulatory authority for local cryptocurrency exchanges, under the scope of regulation of the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Commerce.
