The authorities in Iran have carried out many raids on crypto miners and have now struck gold at the largest exchange in the country. The discovery cost his boss his job.
The CEO of Iran’s largest stock exchange, the Tehran Stock Exchange, Ali Sahraee, apparently could not resist the temptation to do business in his own pocket. Investigators discovered several mining computers in the basement of the stock exchange. It is not clear whether Sahraee will be able to earn a living from mining in the future. In any case, because of this discovery, he has lost his job at the stock exchange for the time being.
One News agency report Islamic Republic News Agency According to the previous Vice President of the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), Mahmoud Goudarzi, will lead the company after the resignation of Sahraee. The stock exchange initially wanted to claim that the mining rigs were part of a research project. But this claim could not be sustained.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced in May that it would ban the mining of Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies over the summer in order to reduce the load on the Iranian electricity grid. When exactly the authorities discovered the miners is not clear from the agency report. There is only talk of a “sudden inspection” in the basement of the stock exchange. However, under current law, the activity was illegal.
While other countries produce excess energy in abundance, the situation in Iran is different. There is a real energy crisis there, which has led to blackouts and voltage drops. For many government officials, the guilty party was quickly found. They accused the crypto miners of consuming the electricity that the population ultimately lacked.
Miners Really To Blame For Power Outages In Iran?
Then, however, a report from the Iranian Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade surfaced in August. It says in it according to media reportsthat the claims made by some authorities regarding power consumption by crypto miners “appear to be grossly exaggerated”. According to a recent study by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, Iran is sixth in the world with a share of slightly less than 4 percent of the global hash rate.
As part of the ban imposed by the Iranian President, the authorities carried out numerous raids on large and small crypto miners. They confiscated illegally working miners and fined households responsible for producing blocks. However, the majority of the raids focused on abandoned factories, homes, and smaller businesses. Such a spectacular find as Iran’s largest stock exchange had not yet entered the investigators’ network.