1,000 Mining Rigs Seized From Iranian Local Mosques

1,000 mining rigs were seized in local mosques in Iran after many of the citizens installed them because of the free electricity. As reported earlier in the coming altcoin news, the mosques in Iran are free of charge when it comes to electricity which is how people are trying to make some more money in the sanction-led country.

The sanctions imposed by the United States continues to crack down on the country since the government revenues are decreasing and are increasing the budget deficit of the country. Iran turned to bitcoin mining operations in order to make some more money. According to Reuters, 1,000 mining rigs were seized by the Iranian authorities in the Yazd Province of Iran. The bitcoin miners were located in two abandoned factories and they used more than one-megawatt power for the mining process. Iran still one of the cheapest countries to mine bitcoin compared to China. According to a study, it shows that in 2018 the cost of mining one bitcoin in Iran was $3,217.

The cheap electricity is mainly because of the huge subsidies by the government of Iran. In 2017, the country spent about $45.1 billion on electricity subsidies. This was about ten percent of the annual GDP of the country and around 15 percent of the total global energy subsidies.

By seizing 1,000 mining rigs, the Ministry of Energy blamed the increased energy consumption on bitcoin mining according to the reports from Teheran’s PressTV. The power consumption for May, for example, surged by seven percent and it was basically a low percentage compared to other years. A ministry spokesperson Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi stated:

 “… a bulk of that unusual increase is because of the activity of bitcoin miners.”

The energy ministry blamed crypto mining for making the grid of the electricity unstable and making it hard for others to use it. Mashhadi even noted that the electricity required to mine bitcoin can power up to 24 households for one year so he put up proposals which will offer a completely different pricing structure for bitcoin operations. The proposal is yet to be implemented according to the latest reports coming in our latest cryptocurrency news.