Arz Digitial, a local news outlet, highlighted the fact that Iran could be cutting the power supply to all of the licensed crypto mining rigs in the country by July. This was mentioned by Rajabi Mashhadi- a spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy in the country. Mashhadi, after citing an anticipated deficit in electricity from the peak summer season, went on to state that there were currently 118 authorized centers of extraction in the country- which would have to cut off their supply of electricity from the national grid from the beginning of July.
Iran Could Get Rid Of Its Crypto Mining Rigs
This move from the Ministry of Energy in Iran comes after they reported a disappointing gain of only 1.2 GW to its capacity of power generation in 2021. This was definitely below the projected gain of 3.5 GW- which led to a deficit in power use. Due to a large number of international sanctions, the country also lacks the investment that is needed in the capacity of power generation and natural gas production to keep up with consumption. On the other side, the demand has been soaring partly due to the extremely low electricity prices in the country.
The average household electricity in Iran costs around $0.005 per kWh, which is in itself a fraction of the $0.024 per kWh in Iraq and well below the sum of $0.159 per kWh in the United States. For a large number of political reasons, the government in the country spends around $60 billion annually in indirect subsidies to depreciate the prices of electricity.
According to information taken from Cambridge University, Iran went on to account for 0.12% of the hash rate of the Bitcoin network– and was also one among the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to BTC mining productivity.
