Iran: No more national energy to Bitcoin mining

Iranian local news media outlet Arz Digital has released news that the Iranian Ministry of Energy will be cutting supply to the country’s licensed cryptocurrency mining companies by the end of this month.

According to the news outlet, Rajabi Mashhadi, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Energy has declared the power supply ban for crypto mining firms comes as a result of reduced energy in the county and limited supply. To combat the reduced energy source, the Ministry is taking the electricity supply away from crypto mining – since they are currency experiencing massive energy spikes.

Mashhadi stated:

“There are currently 118 authorized [digital currency] extraction centers in the country, which must cut off their electricity supply from the national grid from the beginning of July… Last week, the country’s electricity consumption recorded an all-time high of 62,500 megawatts (MW) during peak consumption, which is a significant figure. According to forecasts, this week’s consumption requirement will exceed 63,000 MW, which means we must limit electricity supply.”

The energy ban on Bitcoin and crypto mining in the country comes after the Ministry saw only 1.2 gigawatts (GW) gained to its power generation capacity last year. The Ministry had expected 3.5 GW and budgeted the supply off energy around this figure, leading to a power use deficit. Additionally, there are sanctions in place meaning Iran is not able to receive the power generation and natural gas it might have otherwise been able to, meaning it cannot keep up with consumption. While Bitcoin mining in Iran only accounts for 0.12% of Bitcoin‘s network hashrate, according to Cambridge, crypto mining as an industry still takes up a massive amount of energy, and put Iran as one of the top ten countries in Bitcoin mining productivity. With a power shortage, however, in 2021, Iran’s Bitcoin mining was at 4% of the cryptocurrency’s total hash rate.