Iran– Bitcoin mining machines that were supposedly being used illegitimately have been seized in Iran by the authorities. The machines were allegedly used illegally subsidized energy from a government-run energy provider Tavanir.
As per Tasmin News Agency report, a local media outlet in Iran, 45,000 mostly powerful application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) machines were seized on Sunday.
Purportedly, 95 megawatts per hour of electricity was being consumed by the machines at a reduced rate, said the head of Tanavir, Mohammad Hassan Motavalizadeh.
1,620 illegal cryptocurrency mining farms were shut down earlier this month by the Iranian authorities. All those machines were said to have totally consumed 250 megawatts of electricity over the last18 months, according to a different news outlet.
The ire officials have sought a temporary stagnation on Bitcoin (BTC +2.15%) mining until further information. Iran’s recent power cuts in the major cities have partly been blamed on cryptocurrency mining.
Ziya Sadr, who is a cryptocurrency researcher told the Washington Post on Sunday (January 17) that miners had “nothing to do with the blackouts” basing her argument on the fact that they only constituted a “very small” portion of overall electricity volume in the country.
Last year, in July, Iran had decided on a registration directive under the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade compelling miners to reveal their identities. The disclosure request also forced them to reveal the size of their mining farms and the mining equipment kind.
An account of a similar incident happened in June of last year, which lead to the authorities in Iran seizing 1000 Bitcoin mining machines. A researcher drew a conclusion on the event and said that “Bitcoin was gaining more and more attention in Iran as a potential means of storing wealth”.
Mahsa Alimardani, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, who was raised in Iran, said to BBC that everyone’s talking about Bitcoin in the country and are trying various things to get it.
Iran which has the United States sanctions over its nuclear program has been hit financially because of the same. Iranians can often be seen discussing on social media platforms, predominantly Twitter no the topic of “how wealth can be stored securely?”. Most citizens suggest Gold and US dollars. But, “Bitcoin and [other cryptocurrencies] are slowly coming up as the third alternative,” said Alimardani to BBC.
Seeing the similarities between gold and Bitcoin, some of which are: both gold and bitcoin are created in a limited amount and both are not issued by the central bank or federal government, Iranians’ try on acquiring the cryptocurrency is validated.
