Iran's parliamentary research arm has put a figure on what many observers had long suspected: cryptocurrency mining is consuming a meaningful share of the country's already strained electricity supply. A report from the Majlis Research Center estimates that mining operations draw between 930 and 1,200 megawatts of power, equivalent to roughly 14% of Iran's electricity deficit — the gap between what the grid can supply and what consumers demand — during peak summer months. Averaged across the full year, mining accounts for about 6% of the national electricity shortfall.

The Economics Behind the Megawatts

The Majlis Research Center's analysis goes beyond raw power consumption to calculate the wider economic toll. Sustaining mining operations at this scale requires approximately 2 billion liters of diesel fuel every year, translating into a financial burden of roughly $1.5 billion on the national grid.

Iran's state utility, Tavanir, has previously offered even higher estimates, indicating that 15-20% of the country's power deficits are linked to cryptocurrency mining operations. During major outages, illicit mining activity could be pulling as much as 2,400 MW from the grid.

Subsidized Electricity and the IRGC Connection

Heavily subsidized electricity rates keep production costs low: mining a single Bitcoin in Iran is estimated to cost around $1,300 per coin, compared with a global average of approximately $87,000. The gap reflects how decisive electricity pricing is in Bitcoin mining, where power is the dominant operating cost and jurisdictions with cheap energy have long attracted industrial-scale farms.

Previous reports have documented ties between cryptocurrency mining operations and individuals linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Addresses connected to those operations reportedly received more than $3 billion in crypto inflows during 2025 alone. In September 2026, the US Treasury sanctioned Iran's BitBank for allegedly facilitating large Bitcoin transfers to the IRGC.

Iran's share of the global Bitcoin hashrate — the combined computing power miners contribute to processing and securing Bitcoin transactions — has been a moving target. Estimates have ranged widely, from 4.5% on the conservative end to as much as 10-15% in some analyses. More recent tracking data, however, suggests the figure has declined to around 0.84%.

A Resource Allocation Problem

For Iranian citizens, every megawatt consumed by a mining farm — whether legal or illicit — is a megawatt that cannot power air conditioning during summers when temperatures climb to 50 degrees Celsius, nor hospitals and factories that depend on a stable supply.

The Majlis Research Center report frames the situation as a resource allocation problem, one in which the costs are borne disproportionately by ordinary people while the benefits flow to well-connected operators. With official estimates still ranging widely and Iran's footprint on the global network shifting over time, updated readings from the Majlis Research Center and Tavanir are the numbers to watch next.