Iran’s Electricity Crisis: Traces of Revolutionary Guards and Chinese Companies in Power Consumption for Cryptocurrency Mining and Extraction
The latest report from Iran’s electricity network management company shows that electricity consumption records have been broken in Iran, and this is while Iran has not yet entered the winter season, which sees the highest electricity consumption. This issue has caused concerns about power cuts in Iran.
IRNA, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s government news agency, reported on Tuesday, May 18, that the “upward trend” in “the country’s electricity consumption” has started from the “initial months” this year and predicted that this trend will lead to “consumption levels significantly higher” in the “warmer months” and increase “concerns about timely electricity supply.”
The urgent need of COVID-19 patients for respiratory devices, unseasonably warm weather, and the “new problem of unauthorized home cryptocurrency extraction” are cited as the main reasons for the increase in electricity consumption in IRNA’s report, but there was no mention of extensive activities of government institutions.
Apart from the option of hospital usage, the issue of cryptocurrency extraction by some experts has been declared as the main reason for excessive electricity consumption. Several years ago, institutions affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards began extracting and mining cryptocurrency, and now home extraction has also become common. Some people have been thinking about cryptocurrency mining by purchasing equipment.
The global increase in digital currency prices has made extraction profitable—even accounting for equipment and household electricity costs. However, home cryptocurrency extraction in Iran has been criminalized.
Winter 2020-21 saw a crisis of simultaneous power cuts and severe air pollution that drew media and social network attention to the Bitcoin extraction process in Iran.
Hamshahri newspaper reported that “the Chinese” control the largest “mining” farms in Iran, and “Chinese company Lubin,” “from the largest cryptocurrency extraction farms” that “has been active in Iran for a long time.”
The Zitoon website, on December 10, 2020, based on “unofficial statistics,” reported on “the Revolutionary Guards’ footprint” in “increasing electricity consumption” and “Bitcoin extraction” and wrote that most “180,000 mining devices” registered in Iran “are controlled by companies and institutions affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.”
Tejarat News, publishing a report on public criticism regarding the exclusive extraction of Bitcoin by the government and its prohibition for citizens, wrote quoting its audience: “Throughout Iran’s history, it has always been that shortages are the people’s fault and good deeds belong to governments.”
Official warnings about the unprecedented increase in electricity consumption indicate that at the threshold of the summer season, and even earlier, there is a possibility of nationwide electricity shortage in Iran.
A user named Omid Alavi, in his tweet predicting a “hellish summer,” attributed the reason for possible electricity shortage to “mismanagement by the Ministry of Power and Ardakanian.”
Another user named Reza Ghorbani also considered “blaming blackouts on mining” as “scapegoating” and wrote that the “electricity industry” in Iran “has not been able to develop in line with the world.”
Source: Voice of America
