Iran plans to remove restrictions imposed on cryptocurrency miners, which was instated due to electricity shortages this summer. According to the Iranian media, the country’s power utility company has stated that the ban affecting authorized miners will be lifted as early as September 2021.
The ban on crypto mining, introduced earlier this year by the Iranian Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade, will be lifted on Sept. 22, the English-language business daily Financial Tribune reported.
The hope is that power consumption across the Islamic Republic will decline by the end of summer, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, spokesman for the state-owned utility, told ISNA news agency. A drop in electricity demand when temperatures begin to fall will create conditions for restarting the operations of legal digital currency miners, he noted.
The restrictive measure was announced in May by the then Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, amid an increasing power deficit causing blackouts in many parts of the country. The energy-intensive coin minting process was partially blamed for the shortages.
When the unusually hot weather led to a serious increase in consumption, Iranian regulators initially said licensed miners would be shut down during peak hours. Eventually, the government decided to go with a blanket ban on mining until the end of summer.