Iran Confiscates 7000 Cryptocurrency Mining Computers

The police of Iran raided an illegal cryptocurrency exchange and mining farm to investigate the sudden rise in a power outage in the country. These computers were consuming huge loads of electricity primarily due to the farming process and the air conditioning needed to keep them stable. The official media of the country reported this news on June 22, 2021.

Any crypto farming/mining had been banned by Iran as early as May. The ban is meant to stay for at least four months to compensate for the huge imbalance in power distribution and resultant frequent power cuts. The officials complained of the sudden increase in the demand for electric supply in the country, especially in the hot and dry summer season.

According to General Hossain Rahimi, the Chief of Police of Tehran, the police had seized more than seven thousand computer miners of digital currency were sealed at an abandoned plant situated in the western part of the country.

Bitcoin and other digital currencies are created or mined by implementing mining, a highly competitive process involving computers that have to crack mathematical problems. This process consumes a lot of energy and frequently draws on a lot of electric power generated by the abundance of fossil fuel resources in Iran.

Elliptic, an analytics company that operates on Blockchain, confirmed that the world’s 4.5 percent of bitcoin mining is concentrated in Iran and is thus a major source of revenue for the country, earning hundreds of millions of dollars for it. Thus, Bitcoin mining benefits the country, considering the revenue lessens the impact of US embargos on it.

In recent years, Iran has been implementing crypto mining to provide low-cost power, which requires the miners to sell their BTCs to the central bank. Crypto assets mined in Iran can be utilized as payments against authorized imported goods under the Tehran jurisdiction.