What just happened? Multiple cities in Iran have been facing unplanned power blackouts recently, which according to President Hassan Rouhani, occurred due to a drought affecting the country'south hydroelectric power generation. To close the gap between energy supply and need that usually widens during the summer season, all registered (and unregistered) cryptocurrency mining operations in the country accept been banned until 22nd September 2022.

Among several controversies surrounding cryptocurrency mining is the outcome of energy consumption and its ecology bear on. We recently saw New York looking to put a 3-year ban on mining crypto, but the problem seems much more than serious for Iran. The nation has now issued a iv-calendar month ban on this activity afterward several major cities faced repeated power blackouts.

The combination of scorching summer heat, drought, and demand for greater cooling has put Iran's hydroelectric generation nether stress, which the state is at present looking to adjourn with a temporary ban on ability-hungry cryptomining rigs.

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic estimates that around 4.five percent of all Bitcoin mining takes place in Islamic republic of iran, allowing it to boost its US-sanctioned economy with crypto assets and yielding upwards to $1bn in annual revenue. The country officially recognizes cryptomining and has a licensing authorities in place that allows miners to pay college tariffs for electricity and sell their mined bitcoins to Islamic republic of iran's Central Depository financial institution.

Iranian authorities reportedly confiscated around 45,000 illegal ASIC machines in January this year

However, an 85 percent bulk is still unlicensed, co-ordinate to President Hassan Rouhani, which he said was using between six and vii times more ability than licensed facilities, consuming up to 2,000MW of free energy each day compared to 300MW used by legal operations. "At present everybody has a few miners laying around and are producing Bitcoins," he jokingly said in a televised cabinet meeting.

Critics have dismissed cryptomining equally the chief driver of these power cuts, noting that it consumes less than one percent of Islamic republic of iran's total ability output, according to an internal investigation past lawmakers. Instead, they point to the country's aging power infrastructure and lack of funding to exist the crusade backside the outages.