The Iranian government has granted over 1000 licenses for cryptocurrency mining, according to the Financial Tribune report. Currently, several large crypto mining facilities are operating throughout Iran, but electricity cost has kept small players from entering the market.
“Crypto mining has the potential to add $8.5 billion to the economy.”
Amir Hossein Saeedi Naeini, an official with Iran’s ICT Guild Organization, said that their studies show that the crypto mining industry has the potential to add $8.5 billion to the economy. He further suggested that lowering the electricity rate could further boost the crypto mining industry and also generate more revenue. Currently, 65% of the total crypto mining happens in China.
Iran introduced a bounty law to catch crypto miners operating illegally.
In November 2019, Iranian authorities introduced a bounty law in order to catch crypto miners that are operating unlawfully and using electricity without permission. According to this law, whoever helps in exposing crypto miners using electricity illegally would be rewarded with up to 20% of the recovery of the damage caused to the national power grid.
Iran’s Energy Ministry also revealed that the average price of the export of electricity would be 9,650 rials ($0.08) for each KWh will be used as a baseline to calculate the price of electricity consumed by crypto miners.
