On Thursday, the Iranian Ministry of Energy announced that it would prevent mining of digital currency.Bitcoin“; This is after the increase in electricity consumption and its interruption for long hours in several cities.
A spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Energy, Mustafa Rajabi Mashhadi, told reporters that “more than 1,600 Bitcoin centers have been collected across the country”, adding that “these centers are not licensed by the authorities.”
“So far, 1,622 unlicensed centers have been collected to mine the digital currency symbol Bitcoin,” Mashhadi added, noting that electricity consumption at these centers amounted to about 260 megawatts.
Mashhadi confirmed the continuation of the legal and judicial confrontation with these centers, noting “the current cooperation with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to identify and treat a large number of these centers through the Internet.”
Regarding the recent power outages in some Iranian cities, he said: “Although the outage rate was small, it had a great impact due to the heavy dependence of life on electricity.”
The head of the Iranian president’s office, Mahmoud Vaezi, announced on Wednesday that Hassan Rouhani had ordered the Intelligence and Interior Ministries to deal with unauthorized electricity users to extract the currency symbol.
The problem of power outages in Iran started with the closure of streets and highways in Tehran, Qom, Mashhad, Rasht, Mazandaran, Zahedan and others, along with the plan to ban night traffic.
But two days ago, with the closure of large areas in Tehran and major cities in Iran, this issue came to light in a big way.
Officials with the Iranian Electricity Company imposed restrictions on the supply of fuel to power plants as the main reason for the power outages.
While the National Gas Company of Iran announced that there are no restrictions on the shipment of fuel, it noted that “more this year than last year, power plants were refueled.”
According to Iranian officials, illegal mining of digital currency is one of the main causes of power outages in Iranian cities.
Many factories in Iran have also been closed. As a result of frequent power outages, while press reports said the shutdown was due to pollution levels that have become “dangerous and threaten people’s lives.”
The US sanctions, which have isolated Iran from global financial institutions, have led to a massive increase in cryptocurrency mining in Iran, which has one of the cheapest sources of electricity in the world.
Notably, the use of cryptocurrencies in imports will help the central bank bypass restrictions imposed by the United States on Iran’s use of the dollar system.
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