Iran to lift block reward mining ban in September

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Four months since the Iranian government banned digital currency block reward mining, it’s once again set to allow them to operate in the Middle Eastern country. Iran’s national power generator made the decision earlier this month, but is still concerned about the prevalence of illegal block miners.

As CoinGeek reported in late May, President Hasan Rouhani outlawed block reward mining, expressing concerns over its impact on the national energy supply. The move came after a series of disruptions to the country’s electricity supply, including widespread blackouts in Tehran, the capital. Officials in the Iranian government had identified block reward mining as one of the biggest energy guzzlers, expressing particular concern over the illegal miners which the government is still struggling to bring down.

And now, as English-language Iranian daily Financial Tribune reports, licensed miners will be allowed to resume operations on September 22. Mostafa Rajabi, the spokesperson for the Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir), said the company hopes the high energy consumption will go down as summer comes to an end and autumn sets in.

While the legal miners resume operations in a month, Tavanir is concerned about the prevalence of illegal miners. The Iranian government has estimated that this batch of miners makes up about 85% of the market. These miners use about 3000MW a day, close to half the total daily power consumption in the entire city.

High energy consumption isn’t the only problem they pose, however. Tavanir claims that illegal miners have also been damaging power distribution systems, resulting in severe blackouts.

The Iranian government has been stepping up its efforts against illegal miners. Tavanir claims that so far, authorities have seized 212,373 mining equipment. This equipment reportedly caused 180 trillion rials ($426,641,382) in damages and lost revenue to the utility and power distribution company.

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