Iran One-Ups the United States? Tehran Seeks Crypto Mining Dominance

Crypto mining in Iran is set to become even bigger with the government giving the green light for power plants to mine cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Iran has seen an influx of miners because of its cheap electricity, catapulting the country to be one of the more significant crypto mining nations outside of China.

Babak Behboudi, co-founder of digital asset trading platform SynchroBit Hybrid Exchange, told Cointelegraph that this news marks another milestone for legalized crypto mining in Iran:."It's a great achievement as it indicated the Iranian government has recognized the crypto mining industry as a fact! It means that cryptocurrency can be considered as a legal and regulated asset by which people can do something for their business and life."

Iranian authorities emphasizing licensed crypto mining is not a new development.

As part of the campaign to only allow licensed crypto mining, the government has also offered rewards for whistleblowers who expose illegal cryptocurrency mining activities, with bounties of about 100 million rials.

Iran's government sets the agendaIn May, Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, called on officials at the Central Bank of Iran, Ministry of Energy, and Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to develop a comprehensive national strategy for crypto mining.

Iran's rise in crypto mining activities in 2019 led to a slight decline in clean-energy crypto mining.

"To become a mining hub, the mining industry of Iran needs to have the access to the latest mining technologies, especially the advanced machines, to improve the efficiency of energy consumption and increasing the ROI of the investors. Moreover, we need to see how the government wants to set the roadmap for this new industry. A key issue is how the government wants to allow foreign companies and investors to participate in the crypto mining industry of Iran.".

Challenging China's dominancePower plants in Iran engaging in crypto mining might increase the country's Bitcoin mining footprint, resulting in a larger share of the global hash rate distribution.

Highly efficient crypto mining is even more of a concern in the present climate, especially after the May Bitcoin block reward halving.