Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade permitted a license for iMiner, a cryptocurrency mining company, to operate in the country, as with 6,000 rigs, iMiner’s setup would purportedly make it one of the largest crypto miners in Iran.
On April 29, it has been reported in an article that the company has invested nearly $7.3 million into a Bitcoin (BTC) mining farm in the Semnan Province of Iran, where it will mine the digital currency with 6,000 rigs capable of 96,000 terahashes per second (TH/s) in total.
However, this equates to 16 TH/s per rig on average, the same as the Aladdin Miner listed on the company’s website.
Additionally, iMiner will continue to offer trading and custody services for the Middle Eastern nation through Semnan and their offices in Tehran.
The Iranian government has issued licences to over 1,000 crypto mining companies as part of their efforts to bypass US sanctions https://t.co/bttSY9nh1V — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) May 4, 2020
It has been analyzed that the Iranian government authorized cryptocurrency mining as industrial activity in July 2019 and has since issued over 1,000 licenses to crypto mining companies including iMiner.
The country’s low energy prices make it delightful for miners, who are well known for having high electricity bills.
Moreover, Iran’s economy is suffering both from the continuing pandemic the sanctions enforced by the United States and other western countries. Some military officials have recommended turning to digital currency to help facilitate trade while importing foreign currency and skirting such sanctions.
As per the report, the push for innovative technology has led to smuggling unregistered crypto mining equipment.
Thus, Iranian authorities even offered a bounty for those willing to expose unauthorized mining operations.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: Pixabay