Tehran Stock Exchange CEO "resigned" following discovery of cryptocurrency mining devices

Following the discovery of cryptocurrency mining machines in the Tehran Stock Exchange building, the company's CEO said on Wednesday that he had resigned from his position.

Ali Sahraei told the Iranian Broadcasting Corporation: "In order to create an opportunity for further research into the issue of cryptocurrency mining on the Tehran Stock Exchange and in line with the stability of the capital market, I submitted my resignation to the board of directors of the Tehran Stock Exchange Company, which the board of directors agreed to my resignation."

This is while the state-run IRNA news agency says that Ali Sahraei has been dismissed and replaced by Mahmoud Goodarzi as head of the Tehran Stock Exchange Company.

The Securities and Exchange Organization confirmed in a statement on Wednesday the presence of miners in the Tehran Stock Exchange building.

The statement from the Securities and Exchange Organization states: "A number of miners operated by the Tehran Stock Exchange Company were discovered in the company's building, and further investigation revealed that the aforementioned activity was not fully recorded and disclosed in the company's reports and accounts. Given that such a matter was initially inconsistent with the statute and mission of the stock exchange company, the matter has been sent to the organization's legal department."

According to the Public Relations Office of the Stock Exchange Organization, Tehran Stock Exchange Company implemented a "limited R&D project for mining cryptocurrencies and objectively calculating their ROI rates" as a research project since the beginning of 2020, but "this activity was stopped after a short period of time in the same year."

Detailed statistics from the University of Cambridge, which were recently published, show that Bitcoin mining in Iran grew slightly during the winter of last year and the spring of this year compared to the same seasons the previous year, but increased by 60% compared to the summer and fall of last year.

According to this report, Iran's share in global Bitcoin mining is about 4.6%.

Source: Radio Farda