- An Iranian Bitcoin mining strategy has been called for by the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani
- The strategy requires several agencies to work together to capitalize on the burgeoning industry
- Iran is strengthening laws to try to ensure that crypto mining profits don’t leave the country
An Iranian Bitcoin mining strategy is on the cards after President Hassan Rouhani called on his government to devise a new national plan for the industry. Following the anticipated bumper income from the issuing Bitcoin mining licenses this year, the president has now gone one step further and requested that various ministries come up with a larger scale operation for making the most of the nascent industry.
Iran Takes Bitcoin Mining to a National Level
According to Iranian news site ARZ Digital, at the 137th session of the government’s Economic Coordination Headquarters, held on Tuesday, the Ministries of Energy, Communications and Information Technology, as well as the Central Bank, were tasked with following up on the issue of digital currency mining and making the necessary plans for a national Iranian Bitcoin mining strategy to capitalize on the growing industry.
In alignment with this national strategy is a tightening of the laws around personal cryptocurrency mining, with the Iranian parliament earlier publishing a bill proposing to apply the country’s tough foreign exchange and currency smuggling regulations to cryptocurrencies. The proposed law echoes similar laws around the world, where cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country would need to register with the Central Bank of Iran, potentially in a move to try and prevent too much capital earned from mining from leaving the country.
Foreign Exchanges not Targeted
Huge fines and possible imprisonment await operators who smuggle crypto within the country, although interestingly the proposed law fails to account for foreign cryptocurrency exchanges, which control the largest stake in the Iranian crypto market, meaning miners could try and use these as legal outlets.
Iran is already set to earn a nice $8.5 billion bounty from licensed cryptocurrency mining, and with an Iranian Bitcoin mining strategy in the works it looks like the US is going to have its work cut out administering the sanctions it has been applying since 1979.
