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Iran’s state electricity company has just shared some good news for its local cryptocurrency miners, announcing that the mining ban is likely to be lifted come September. The Iran Power Generation, Distribution, and Transmission Company (Tavanir) previously prohibited mining on a country-wide basis earlier this year, in May. With the country struggling to distribute electricity, such a massive consumer like the mining industry had to abort all operations.
Even the country’s government blamed the mining, but also the unusually hot summer. The great amounts of electricity that was spent to accommodate the mining industry and make the heat waves bearable resulted in blackouts throughout the country, affecting not only homes, but also businesses, and even public services.
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Fortunately, Tavanir predicts that the situation will slowly get better and that the mining ban should be lifted by September 22nd.
Iran is a major player on the crypto mining scene
For those who might not know, crypto mining is a massive power consumer of electricity, as it requires a large amount of computer power to solve complicated mathematical equations. In doing so, computers are processing transactions and “solving” blocks, which, put together in chronological order, make up the blockchain.
The most popular crypto for mining is, of course, Bitcoin (BTC/USD). However, Bitcoin is also the biggest spender, which is also the reason why electric car company Tesla aborted crypto payments, in protest of BTC mining being so environmentally unfriendly.
But, the mining business is still good for Iran, as the country earned hundreds of millions of dollars from crypto mining. The use of cryptocurrencies also allowed it to bypass the 2018 US sanctions, put into place by former President Donald Trump. According to statistics, Iran is responsible for around 4.5% of global crypto mining, and it might climb up the ladder somewhat now that China is cracking down on its own mining community.
The country has recognized the potential of mining, and in 2019, the Iranian government created mining licenses, where miners get the approval to mine, but must pay higher electricity tax. On top of that, they also must sell their mined coins to Iran’s central bank. Meanwhile, the country cracked down on all illegal mining, even the operations conducted by mosques, which have free electricity.