Iranian authorities have reportedly seized 7000 cryptocurrency mining machines at an illegal mining factory in Tehran, the country’s capital. The haul represents the largest collected by authorities since the country started clamping down on the activities of crypto miners.
As reported earlier, the clampdown was made official in late May after Iran announced that all cryptocurrency mining operations would be temporarily suspended. The move was made to rectify frequent power blackouts caused by high electricity demand from miners and prioritize the sale of electricity to households.
Per a Reuters report on the incident, the latest seizure involved an abandoned factor, suggesting that it didn’t really pose any threat to the city’s energy grid. Rather, it was a precautionary move to stop future operations.
Meanwhile, Iran’s temporary clampdown on crypto mining comes at a time when Chinese authorities are also shutting down mining firms within its jurisdiction. Roughly 4.5% of Bitcoin mining is done in Iran, while China contributes an even greater value.
These recent developments are being held by Bitcoin enthusiasts as being beneficial to Bitcoin’s decentralization ethos in the long term. With Iran and China limiting mining farms, affected companies are moving their operations overseas, with the U.S. and Kazakhstan being among the prime beneficiaries.
In the short term, the migration of mining companies is taking a toll on the Bitcoin market, with the nuance being that miners need to sell off their bitcoin holdings to fund their move. The price of Bitcoin (BTC) dropped to the $28k zone earlier in the day, and the network’s hash rate has also been on a downward spiral.
On the positive side, Bitcoin is still up by over 10% on the year-to-date (YTD) chart and continues to see increased adoption at the institutional level. Earlier this week, banking giant BBVA announced that its Swiss division would launch Bitcoin trading for private clients.
BTC trades at $31900 at the time of writing and still boasts a market cap above $600 billion.
