The government says it recognizes mining of cryptocurrencies as an industrial undertaking and sent a directive to the relevant government bodies at the weekend to start regulating this emerging industry.
Rules primarily include details regarding procedures on granting permission to miners, price of electricity, taxation and earnings repatriation, Financial Tribune reports.
Energy Ministry spokesman for power department, Mostafa Rajabi was ccited by ISNA as saying that crypto miners “should first receive special permits” from the Ministry of Industriy, Mine and Trade (MIMT).
As for electricity prices for the rapidly mining business, he said “bills will be sent based on average power export rates in rials as per forex parity rates in the secondary market, known as Nima (Persian acronym for Integrated Forex Deals System)", according to the paper.
A dollar in Nima was selling for a little less than 120,000 rials.
Prospective miners have two options regarding their use of electricity. They can either directly use the national electricity power grid or use mini-grids.
Those who want to establish power plants should first decide the location and subscribe to the national gas grid. The feed gas rate will be equal to 70% of natural gas export prices.
Regarding those who want to use the national electricity grid, Rajabi said their bills will be calculated based on consumption, wrote Financial Tribune, Iran's only economic English daily.
If, for instance, their consumption is less than 7 megawatt, they will be referred to power distribution companies. Those using more than 7 MW will have to deal with the regional electricity companies.
He warned miners that they must first have permits or will face prosecution, underscoring the Energy Ministry jurisdiction to cut power supply to unauthorized miners.
Rajabi said those who intend to use household electricity for mining cryptocurrencies must also apply for special permits.
He stressed that overconsumption of households if they are involved in crypto mining activities is easy to detect.
“The average consumption of 80% of subscribers in temperate climate is less than 300 kwh in summer. As such, overconsumption is easily verifiable.”
Regarding use of consumption of mining equipments, he differentiated between first and second generation devices, saying power consumption by the former is double compared to the latter.