Iran will develop a national strategy for the mining industry

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has ordered the government to develop an updated nationalcryptocurrency mining industry development strategy.

Rouhani spoke at a seminar this week onnational economic strategy, which ordered officials from the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology to develop a new national strategy for the development of cryptocurrency mining.

The President made a statement a few days laterafter the Iranian parliament published a bill proposing to include cryptocurrencies in the current legislation on “currency smuggling”, and to oblige cryptocurrency exchanges to obtain a license from the Central Bank of Iran to operate in the country. The penalty for smuggling in Iran is a fine or imprisonment.

Iran was one of the first to officially equate miningcryptocurrency to industries last summer. The government now issues mining licenses, giving companies the right to mine and sell the resulting crypto assets. An industry report in January said Iran issued more than 1,000 such licenses in the first six months of the law.

According to the Bitcoin Mining Map, Iran's current shareBitcoin's global hashrate is 4%, which is double what it was at the beginning of September 2019. It is unclear why the country's president wants Iranian officials to reconsider their mining strategy.

In February, it was reported that the commander of one of Iran's armed forces was calling for the use of cryptocurrency to avoid sanctions and increase international investment in the country.

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