The meeting was also attended by the members of other ICCIMA committees including the development of non-oil exports, energy, knowledge-based businesses, as well as money and capital markets, ICCIMA portal reported.

The attendees of the meeting stressed the need for passing definitive laws and regulations in this field as the first and most important factor to create the necessary basis for the development of this sector.

Speaking in the meeting, Ali Shams Ardakani, the head of ICCIMA Energy Committee presented a report on the cryptocurrency markets around the world and said: “First, the private sector needs to have a comprehensive understanding of the cryptocurrency market and after identifying the functions of such currencies necessary meetings should be held with officials and policymakers for presenting the demands in this field.”

“The private sector should be aware that policymakers may make wrong decisions due to lack of knowledge in this area, and we should try to collaborate to make the context of this industry known to them,” he added.

Further in the event, Farzin Fardis, a member of the ICCIMA committee of knowledge-based businesses, mentioned some of the challenges and issues that the people active in this area are currently facing and said: “The biggest concern of people and businesses in the field of cryptocurrencies is uncertainty with legal issues, sharp fluctuations in value, lack of security and fraud, lack of transparent support and religious considerations.”

The technical-legal structure of the cryptocurrency market should be reformed under the supervision of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), he stressed.

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According to this bill, the government and the banking system would not recognize cryptocurrencies as legal coins and the Central Bank of Iran would not guarantee their value.

However, the bill said mining digital currencies would be allowed inside Iran under certain conditions, including if miners obtain the approval of Iran’s industry ministry, do not mine the currencies inside a 30-kilometer boundary of all provincial centers except for the capital Tehran and the central city of Isfahan where tougher restrictions apply.

It said the miners should also observe rules set by Iran’s standardization and communications authorities for mining machines, adding that certain fees will be applied for the energy used for mining the currencies.

As for the energy prices, the bill said authorized mining farms should be charged for the electricity, or the natural gas used to generate electricity, based on prices applied for the electricity exports.

It said mining farms would be taxed like industrial manufacturing units unless the owners return the money earned from the export of their digital currencies back to Iran’s economic cycle.

The bill said Iran’s ministry of industry shall be free to devolve its powers to authorities in special economic zones if foreigners want to set up mining farms in those areas.

The new rules come more than a month after reports suggested that mining farms were mushrooming across Iran in places where subsidized electricity was on offer.

Authorities had hinted in the midst of a crackdown on those farms that they would recognize cryptocurrency mining as it could ease government’s access to sources of foreign currency at a time of U.S. sanctions.

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Using cryptocurrencies in domestic exchanges is also not permitted.

Also, mining cryptocurrencies, like any other industrial activities, will be subject to tax rules and miners can only be exempted from tax if they return part of their earned currencies into the country’s economic cycle.

Earlier this month, the government’s economic committee approved a mechanism for mining cryptocurrencies.

“The government’s economic committee has approved a mechanism for mining digital coins and it will later be put to discussion at a cabinet meeting,” the Governor of Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Abdolnaser Hemmati announced on July 21.

As reported, the committee also passed a proposal for applying export rates for the electricity used by the domestic miners.

According to Deputy Minister of Energy Homayun Haeri, “a plan to apply the exported electricity rate for mining farms was approved by the government’s economic committee and will soon be discussed and voted on by the cabinet.”

Iran has been recently wrestling with over consumption of electricity by cryptocurrency mining farms across the country as many have rushed to mine coins due to cheap electricity.

Mining cryptocurrencies is, in nature, a very energy-consuming process. Some scholars even believe that due to its exponential growth it might consume the world’s entire electrical energy by 2020.
In late June, Iranian Energy Ministry announced that due to bitcoin mining processes the country’s electricity consumption increased by seven-percent this summer.

Consequently, the ministry proposed that the costs of electricity for cryptocurrency miners should be determined based on electricity export rates.

Following the Energy Ministry, Iran’s Power Generation and Distribution Company (known as TAVANIR) also announced that using electricity for mining cryptocurrencies is illegal and those household or commercial subscribers that use electricity for such activities will be cut off from the national grid.

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