Iran has introduced a new policy, proposing that anyone who shares information about illegal and unauthorized mining of cryptocurrency in the country will receive a bounty. This was surfaced following the country’s new introduced regulations regarding the calculation of price of electricity that is utilized by crypto miners.
Iran’s Energy Ministry’s spokesperson announced that anyone who will go on record and expose people who have wielded electricity for the mining of digital currencies will receive a reward. The announcement was made on Wednesday, detailing that the bounty offered would be 20 percent of total the cost recovery of the power grid caused by the damage inflicted.
Mostafa Rajabi was the person who made the announcement in an IRIB News interview. He gave details and explained the new structure of regulating prices for the electricity used by digital currency miners like that of Bitcoin(BTC)trade.
Rajabi detailed that the new regulations state that mining under national electricity grid of virtual currencies will not be allowed during the hours of high consumption in the country. He further added that peak hours spread over 300 hours during every year.
Rajabi further stated that the electricity’s average price of exportation will be used during the remaining time of the year as a standard point to estimate the average price of power that cryptocurrency miners consume. Currently, the fixed price of average sum for export of electricity sits at 9,650 rials, which is equivalent of $0.08, per kilowatt hours (KWh).
The price would be almost half of the original price in the eight months of winter when the electricity consumption is low, averaging to about $0.04 per Kilowatt. On the other hand, during the four months of summer when the electricity consumption is at its peak across the country, the price would increase to about $0.16 per KWh.
Iran’s Ambiguous Approach to Crypto Mining
The new regulations are introduced three months after Iranian authorities were cracking down on the illegal use of subsidized electricity that was reportedly being utilized for mining of digital currencies like Bitcoin.
Over the summer, there were reports of police raiding abandoned factories and livestock units where crypto miners were hiding out and carrying out their illegal activities. The factories and livestock units were mostly used because the prices of electricity there were low.
Rajabi states that the government is ready to offer incentives to anyone who is willing to set up their own power plants for the purpose of mining virtual currencies.
