The Research Center of the Parliament announced that devices related to cryptocurrency mining consume nearly 700 million kilowatt-hours of electricity monthly. This report examines the electricity imbalance and the impact of miners' activities on Iran's power grid. Given the daily shortfall of 5 billion kilowatt-hours during the hot days of the year, if all miners' activities were to stop, the amount of time the grid would operate without any blackouts would increase from 5.2 percent to 33.6 percent, and voltage drops across the country would also decrease.
Methods for Calculating Energy Consumption
The Research Center used two different approaches to accurately calculate energy consumption. The first method is based on Iran's share of the total global processing power or hash rate of cryptocurrencies, while the second considers changes in electricity consumption during internet outages. According to the second method, in January 2025, when the internet was completely cut off nationwide, the baseline electricity consumption of the grid dropped by approximately 927 megawatts between 3 and 5 AM. This report also emphasizes that all of this reduction in consumption is not solely related to miners, as part of it is due to decreased activity from data centers and other internet-related infrastructures.
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Mining Costs and Their Economic Impact
Providing the energy needed for miners significantly imposes high costs on the country's production and fuel consumption sectors. Supplying electricity to these devices from thermal power plants requires the annual production of 8.4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. To provide this amount of energy, approximately 2.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas or 2 billion liters of diesel fuel will be needed in power plants each year. According to the Research Center's report, if the fuel cost is calculated based on the price of imported diesel at a minimum of 70 cents per liter, the fuel cost required for cryptocurrency mining reaches about 1.5 billion dollars annually, which does not include the damages incurred to various sectors of the country's industry due to blackouts.
This report indicates that cryptocurrency mining in the residential sector is not economically justified, as high consumption leads to increased electricity tariff prices; however, it can be profitable and justifiable in industrial, agricultural, and commercial sectors. The Tavanir Company has so far managed to identify 2,500 megawatts of unauthorized cryptocurrency consumption in the country, and estimates suggest that about another 2,500 megawatts of this illegal consumption remain undiscovered. In response to this situation and to expedite the organization of the network, the Islamic Consultative Assembly has recently approved an urgent bill to combat unauthorized cryptocurrency mining.
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