According to a report announced recently, Iran, a Middle Eastern country, has moved to disconnect the electricity of 118 legal crypto miners in the country. The action, which isn’t new in the country, is set to take place in two days. In previous years, the authorities of Iran had cut off electricity supply to crypto miners. The reason was the high demand for electricity during the hot months of the year.
During an interview with a TV owned by the state, Iran’s power industry spokesperson, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadiinterview with a TV owned by the state, announced that the country would cut off the power supply to crypto miners beginning from the 22nd of June. Although the miners are licensed, all 118 crypto miners in the country will not have a power supply.
He said,
The electricity of authorized cryptocurrency mining units will be cut off from the beginning of the next Iranian calendar month Tir (Wednesday, June 22) until the end of the restriction.
In the past week, the electricity consumption in the country spiked as it recorded a consumption of 62,500 MW. Owing to the humid temperature as a result of summer, the power consumption is likely to exceed 63,000 MW which is the country’s threshold.
Furthermore, for a long while now, It’s. Has been trying to curb illegal cryptocurrency mining in the nation. In 2019, the Middle Eastern country permitted crypto mining and, in 2020, gave 1000 crypto miners licenses. However, the illegal crypto mining didn’t stop as illegal miners joined the country’s power source, consuming power.
Like last year, the justification for cutting off the power supply of 118 crypto miners was due to the summer’s high electricity demand. Mashadi also stated that the country experienced several power outages these past weeks due to electricity demand surpassing 60,000 MW.
Last year, a temporary ban on crypto mining was lifted in September. However, there’s no statement yet whether or not the ban will be placed again this year. Additionally, illegal crypto miners were asked to pay huge sums as fines for damaging the nation’s power resource last year.
Iran’s power resources are already facing several issues due to unfavorable weather, such as insufficient rainfall and drought. Crypto mining has only made things worse for the country’s electric industry. Thankfully, there are no fears of shutting down crypto mining in the nation as, unlike in the past years, Iran’s hash rate won’t be severely affected due to the decline in BTC mining.
Read more about crypto mining here.
According to Cambridge’s Bitcoin Mining Map, Iran lags behind many nations. In June last year, Iran’s total hash rate was 6.9%. However, in January 2022, the figure dropped significantly to 0.2%.
