How much bitcoin has Iran mined? it’s complicated

Iran mines and trades cryptocurrencies when necessary. Major global sanctions And local currency that has lost its value as a result Serious inflation At least since 2019. But experts said Decryption It is still almost impossible to estimate the holdings.

Cambridge University Alternative Finance Centre The country estimated that in March 2021 it accounted for 7.5% of Bitcoin hashrate.

Throughout its history, Andrew Scott Easton, founder and CEO of Bitcoin Minor Fund. The mastermindestimated that the country mined about 60,000 BTC. This is worth $6.4 billion at its current price.

Meanwhile, Kent Halliburton, co-founder and CEO of Mining Platform Cizsince 2018, the country has mined 100,000-200,000 BTC. That means its holdings are worth between $10.7 billion and $21.4 billion. As in 2019, timing is important. Iran has begun issuing legal permits For crypto mining.

However, Rajat Ahlawat, a researcher at a compliance company. Crystal IntelligenceI said Decryption It’s too complicated to estimate. He said that’s because Iran’s mining industry is being driven primarily underground to avoid high electricity prices.

The easiest sector to trace is the legally approved crypto mining farm sector. 2020, about According to 1,000 crypto mining farm licenses have been issued. Iran’s National Resistance Council– A coalition against Iran’s current government. According to the same source, more than 10,000 licenses were distributed to miners and exchanges in 2022.

but, Former President Hassan Rouhani I have told myself that about 85% of Iran’s mining were uncertified as of 2021. Tabanir, a state utility in Iran, Estimated Approximately 700,000 illegal mining rigs were operated in Iran earlier this year.

That’s because licensed mining farms often struggle to turn down a significant amount of profit, and therefore have a high tariff and electricity prices placed on them, which makes them struggle to turn down a significant amount of profit.

“The iron and steel industry uses a lot of electricity for melting and so on, but let’s say the tariffs paid by the iron and steel industry is lower than what (crypto) miners pay,” Ahlawat said. DecryptionIt explains why mining is so underground.

When new Bitcoin If mined, there is no on-chain trace as to where miners are. That means it is impossible to know where it came from. This will help Iranian citizens and governments avoid international sanctions.

As a result, the condition for the crypto mining license is that all the bitcoins mined must be Directly sold to Iran’s central banktherefore, the government can benefit from avoiding sanctions. However, this means that individual miners and groups will lose this profit from Bitcoin mining.

As such, much of Iran’s mining comes from individuals and internal institutions. Schools and MosquesAhlawat has access to free or heavily subsidized electricity. It goes without saying that government-related organizations that mine Bitcoin and benefit from reducing electricity bills.

These illegal operations have exposed Iran’s power grid to immeasurable pressure, sometimes causing power losses nationwide, skimming potential benefits from power providers. Tabanir has become a huge problem Provide prize money to those who report illegal crypto farms.

For crypto mining Electricity thirst And Ahlawat, a report from local media, believes that a large portion of Iranian agriculture will be found in major cities. For example, Iranian police in 2022 Found and confiscated 9,404 illegal mining equipment in Tehran over six months.

Sunday, The US bombed Iran’s Fordaw nuclear siteIt is buried deep in the mountains. From the day before the strike until Tuesday, bitinfochartsBitcoin hashrate fell 27.9%. This allows I’ll post it on x It went viral on speculation that Iran was mining Bitcoin in the mountains.

Ahlawat believes the nuclear facility has the electrical infrastructure that operates the farm, but added that there is no concrete evidence to suggest that Fordow has a particularly mining farm. Meanwhile, mining companies Blocksbridge Consulting I was pushed back to the theory of Newsletterclaims that the industry should not look at short-term hashrate numbers very closely because of its volatility as a daily metric (Galaxy Research Head Alex Thorn said it was about the same for X).

Ahlawat said if a nuclear facility is mining Bitcoin, it would be in the hands of the Iranian government or one of its weapons.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corpsaka IRGC, is considered a large player in Iran’s crypto mining, said both Easton and Aarawat. The IRGC is a powerful branch of Iranian military created after the Iranian revolution in 1979. Easton believes the IRGC is likely to be Iran’s biggest bitcoin miner, citing an article from Iran’s National Council on Resistance.

“Again, there are no exact numbers,” added Ahlawat. “Iran has a great history of hiding things because the government is involved, so all the mining that the government has done is hidden. So we have no insight.”

Simply put, the amount of bitcoin mined by Iran is not certain. This is because an estimated 85% of the industry is driven underground as a way to avoid high power bills and desire to hold crypto tokens.

It’s easy to make a judgment about Iran’s mining industry, but the majority of Iranian civilians are simply mining codes as a way to make money and avoid the country’s expansion. Decryption With 166,000 followers, I found one social media account selling soundproof boxes for home miners—0.18% of the total Iranian population.

As the Iranian public is obsessed with codes, last year Iranian officials warned against playing Eelam’s game Hamster Combat from a telegram tap. Admiral Habibora Saiyari, the deputy chief of Iranian military, called it a distraction created by the “enemies” to distract people from the country’s politics, calling it a part of the Western “soft war” in Iran.

Despite the warning, citizens tapped on the clicker game that promised a crypto token air route for in-game progression. The game attracts over 300 million players, and they all hope to get rich from the Telegram Mini app. However, many players complained that once they receive a token, they claim that it is nothing more than “dust” because it is less valuable.

The HMSTR is currently down 90% from an all-time high, reaching it shortly after its release. If Iranians who wanted to avoid Iran’s inflation rate of around 38% had held the HMST token, they would have failed.

Edited by Stacy Elliott