Sanctions-Hit Iran A 'Heaven' for Bitcoin Mining, Says Gov't Official

Iranian authorities are wrestling with the rising number of citizens turning to Bitcoin mining and use as a means of coping with a sanctions-crippled economy.

Iran's minister for information and communications technology, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, told the Associated Press that the country has become "a heaven for miners," according to a July 18 report.

"The business of 'mining' is not forbidden in law but the government and the Central Bank have ordered the Customs Bureau to ban the import of until new regulations are introduced."

As AP reports, subsidized electricity rates - currently at half-a-cent per kilowatt - have fueled a thriving crypto mining community, although this is now set to change.

Police raids on mining farms are being televised to disincentivize citizens and Iran's Electrical Industry Syndicate has revealed its intention to hike up electricity prices to 7 cents per kilowatt.

In 2018, the head of the Iranian parliament's economic commission, Mohammad Reza Pour-Ebrahimi, revealed that roughly $2.5 billion had been funnelled out of Iran via crypto - yet the matter has not been publicly raised since.

Even as the U.S. purportedly attempts to muscle in on Iranians' mining and use of crypto to bypass sanctions, local officials have underplayed its systemic importance.

"Cybercurrencies are effective in bypassing sanctions when it comes to small transactions, but we do not see any special impact in them as far as mega-transactions are concerned. We cannot use them to go around international monetary mechanisms."

As reported, Iranian authorities have ratcheted up their mining crackdown this summer, confiscating ~1,000 units of mining machines from two now-defunct factories and cutting off power to miners ahead of the planned energy price hike.

Some miners are allegedly weathering the authorities' U-turn by taking refuge in the country's mosques, which the government provides with free energy.