Authorities in Iran are warning of the strain that unauthorised cryptocurrency mining operations are putting on the country's electricity grid.
According to a Telegram post on Iran's semi-official Fars news agency's main channel, the country's deputy Minister of Energy, Mostafa Mashhadi, expressed frustration about the problem.
In an interview with Fars, he said Iran has “plans in place” to identify and shut down illegal crypto mining operations. Mr Mashhadi also pointed out that authorities routinely offer rewards for tips about illegal mining operations.
Cryptocurrency mining is broadly defined as the process by which digital assets are obtained, most famously initiated and standardised by Bitcoin. The digital assets are secured through a blockchain network.
The mining, however, is incredibly energy-intensive and can sometimes require special hardware. Dedicated mining companies, with already highly efficient set-ups, consume about 155,000kWh of electricity to mine a single Bitcoin, according to Crypto.com.
The average energy consumed for one Bitcoin transaction is 851.77kWh – equivalent to about a month of electric power consumption in the average US household. In 2025, crypto mining was banned in several places in Russia as a way to preserve energy resources.
Iran's concern about illegal crypto mining is particularly notable because the country's rulers have frequently been said to use cryptocurrencies as a way to overcome the sanctions that have decimated Iran's economy for several decades.
Just last week, US authorities in Washington announced sanctions against Iran’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Nobitex, accusing it of enabling the Iranian government and blacklisted state institutions to evade Western sanctions.
The US government accused Nobitex of assisting in processing hundreds of millions of dollars for Iran’s central bank and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Three other digital asset exchanges in Iran have also come in for sharp criticism from the US Treasury.
