Mining Bitcoin using subsidized and cheap electricity

Mining bitcoins has become very much trendy in Iran due to cheap and subsidized electricity. Over the past few weeks, news came after news about where bitcoin farms have been detected. Although there is no specific law saying that mining bitcoin is not permitted, it seems that the Ministry of Power wants to control such activities due to its huge consumption. The Ministry has said that it is going to define new tariffs for bitcoin farms, however it is not clear how such regulations would work.

On Sunday, one of the largest bitcoin farms were found at an idle manufacturing site. According to the Ministry of Power, the electricity used by this farm has been 7 Megawatts, equivalent to 4% of Taleghan Power Plant Capacity. The consumption of power for this farm in 24 hours, has been equivalent to 60 Iranian households in a year.

There has been also reports mentioning that the Ministry has tracked big consumers of the electricity and has found mining bitcoins in other places such as mosques and schools, where electricity is free for them.

Power in Iran is highly subsidized. Each Kilowatt-hour of electricity in Iran is sold at 0.006 USD and the price is even much less than western part of China, where it costs 0.015 USD. And therefore, mining bitcoins has become very much popular in the country.