March 25, 2022
The Ministry of Industry has dismissed claims by the national power company, Tavanir, that cryptocurrency mining has led to the ongoing electricity blackouts all across the country.
Air-Reza Hadi, the ministry’s director of investment, said the Tavanir claims “seem to be highly exaggerated.” Tavanir said illegal cryptocurrency miners were consuming 2,000 megawatts of the country’s available power or almost 4 percent of what’s available. Hadi said that simply wasn’t credible because it would mean the illicit miners had three million pieces of equipment operating in the country.
Last spring, Tavanir warned that power outages were likely during the summer and explained some of the reasons. It did not mention cryptocurrency mining. In succeeding days, many writers speculated that cryptocurrency mining was siphoning off a lot of electricity. Only then did Tavanir begin to blame the miners.
In the succeeding months, the miners became the chief scapegoat being blamed all over the country for the blackouts.