Chinese BTC Miners Choose Iran For Cheap Electricity But Dislike The Regime

Hundreds of Chinese bitcoin miners decided to move to Iran in 2018 due to the cheap electricity when the crackdown on crypto mining began in China. However, they have issues with the authoritarian regime and in the latest cryptocurrency news below we read more about it.

Bitcoin miner Feng Liu told the Chinese crypto website 8BTC News, that he operates a mine with more than 20,000 units of Antminer T9 and explained that many miners decided to go to Iran because the electricity is extremely cheap. He stated:

 “If you want to invest in power plants in Iran, the government there will supply free natural gas for the first five years, which further lowers electricity costs. Gasoline costs only 0.6 yuan ($0.09) per liter and diesel 0.4 yuan ($0.06) per liter. Labor cost is also quite cheap.”

The government of Iran however, decided to ban all energy-devouring mining rigs at the border. So this means that all of the mining equipment will be confiscated at the border. Liu says that he was able to import about 3,000 T9 Miners in Iran in 2018 with a couple of border agents who helped him declare the rigs as computer processors. However, he cannot import any more currently. Liu pointed out:

 “The risk of miners being detained and confiscated at the border is quite high. It’s said that Iranian customs have so far confiscated at least 40,000 crypto mining rigs of various models.”

The problem in Iran is there are too many greedy intermediaries who want a huge chunk of the mining profits. The power plants don’t stay true to the contracts so after a month they demand a 50/50 split and they even doubled the electricity price.

Liu continued:

 “Mining investors need to pay a certain amount of refundable electricity deposit to the Iran’s state grid. Small and medium-sized miners could apply to enter the industrial park in groups.’’

Back in 2018, the Chinese city of Tianjin confiscated about 600 bitcoin mining computers.