Iran detects 5,380 illegal energy-guzzling crypto farms

DUBAI: Iranian power authorities have detected as many as 5380 unauthorized cryptomining farms and seized more than 200,000 pieces of hardware from illegal operators, according to local media reports.
Closing such farms to prevent blackouts has been high on the agenda of the Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir) as demand for electricity remains high.
Reprts citing Tavanir said the collective power consumption of such farms is equal to the consumption of 800,000 households or 2 million people.
In May, Iran banned the energy-intensive mining of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin till September 22 as the nation faced major power blackouts in many cities.
The country believes that its decision to stop crypto mining will help avoid blackouts in major cities, which could disrupt lives and businesses.
Former Iran president Hassan Rouhani had said 85 percent of crypto mining in Iran was illegal and unlicensed. The country had hired spies to carry out its war on cryptocurrency mining.
In June, Tehran police chief Hossein Rahim said Iran’s largest cryptocurrency mining farm, which had 7,000 cryptocurrency production devices and consumed about 4 percent of Iran’s electricity, was discovered in an abandoned factory in the western part of the country’s capital.