Iran court orders return of seized crypto mining equipment
The head of Iran’s finance ministry has called for solutions to be found for crypto mining-related power outages
Judges in Iran have ordered the nation’s government to return thousands of seized cryptocurrency mining rigs, according to local media.
The Islamic Republic of Iran was once a hotbed of cryptocurrency mining. However, in 2021, authorities banned the practice and seized computers and other equipment used by crypto miners. They cited anxiey about the pressure that mining placed on the nation’s energy grid.
Now Iran’s Organisation for Collection and Sale of State-Owned Property (OCSSOP) has been told to stop seizing mining equipment.
Abdolmajid Eshtehadi, the head of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance, said: “Currently, some 150,000 crypto mining equipment are held by the OCSSOP, a large part of which will be released following judicial rulings. Machines have already been returned.”
Eshtehadi acknowledged the anxiety that the use of the newly released equipment could affect Iran's energy grid in the middle of winter and called on Iran's electricity company, the Generation and Transmission Company of Iran, to produce proposals for how to avoid mining-related outages.
Iran, accounted for 0.2% of the global bitcoin hash rate at the end of 2022, having accounted for 0.12% in June 2022.
