President Hassan Rouhani told a cabinet meeting the main cause of the blackouts was a drought that had affected hydro-electric power generation. But he said cryptocurrency mining, 85% of which is unlicensed, was draining more than 2GW from the grid each day.
According to analytics company Elliptic, the activity allows the country to bypass sanctions and earn hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto assets that can be used to purchase imports. Iran's banks were cut off from the global financial system and its oil exports plummeted, depriving it of a source of hard currency and revenue, as a result of sanctions reinstated by the US in 2018 when then President Donald Trump abandoned a landmark nuclear deal.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now