Trading through the digital currency crypto is being restricted in Iran. 118 Crypto miners are going to observe a power supply cut, according to a Bloomberg report. The power cut seems to be a precaution for the increased electricity consumption in Iran and is to initiate on June 22.
Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, the spokesperson of the power industry of Iran, stated that the electricity demand will exceed 63,000 megawatts this week. The consumption peaked last year in August at 67,000 megawatts. With Iran already under US sanctions on foreign trade, crypto could be a way to avoid them. Although, the implementation of the latest policy indicates that extravagant power consumption is a more immediate concern at this time.
Iran began acknowledging crypto in 2019. Iranian crypto miners had to get licensed to trade and send the collected bitcoins to Iran’s state bank. But this changed later when the government announced two shutdowns on crypto centers as it saw a rise in power consumption.
Iran continues to have a complicated relationship with its crypto miners. While the industry boomed after US sanctions on Iran, difficulties were seen later due to restrictions from the government. Crypto had been under government scrutiny in other countries too. Miners in China experienced a severe crackdown that reduced the Chinese crypto hash rate. Crypto hash rate is the power consumed by a computer processing transactions by a network, for example, Bitcoin. Nevertheless, a rise in crypto trading was seen soon after the ban. However, the country remains hostile towards it.
Source: Bloomberg via TechCrunch
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