Iran crypto miners given one month to register with the state. On Monday, Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri announced that the country’s cryptocurrency miners will soon have to register their rigs with the government.
Under the directive, miners will have to reveal their identities, the size of their mining farms and their mining equipment type with the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade.
Miners will have a month to register their equipment with the Ministry which will then publish a list of licensed mining centers. Officials said Monday they want to “eliminate the confusion of cryptocurrency activists” with the new directive. That confusion has largely been of Iran’s own doing. This includes conflicting mining policies, tariffs and laws leaving miners in a gray zone for years.
Ultimately, the directive will allow Iran tighter control over its on-the-books miners, though it remains to be seen how much of the underground community will heed the directive. Iranian miners contributed nearly 4% of bitcoin’s hashrate in April.
The directive did not specify the punishment for failing to register. However, illegal bitcoin miners have faced jail time and steep fines in the past.
[image: Hadi Yazdi Aznaveh]
