U.S. Strikes on Iran Spark Debate Over Bitcoin Hashrate and Market Stability

Bitcoin mining in Iran is back in the spotlight after a viral X post on February 27 claimed the country runs a $1 billion operation that could be wiped out.

The debate has split crypto observers, with some warning of a temporary hashrate shock and others dismissing the claims as exaggerated fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD).

Iran’s Mining Footprint and the Strike Scenario

The discussion began when independent analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera posted that Iran mines Bitcoin at a theoretical cost of $1,320 per BTC using heavily subsidized electricity and then selling it at the current price near $68,000 to extract what he described as a 50x gross margin.

He alleged that around 700,000 mining rigs consume roughly 2,000 megawatts daily, much of it tied to operations linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

Perera tied the argument to sanctions, saying Bitcoin allows Iran to convert restricted energy resources into liquid capital beyond the reach of SWIFT prohibitions.

A January 16 report by Chainalysis found that Iran’s total crypto activity exceeded $7.78 billion in 2025. Furthermore, the report said addresses linked to IRGC facilitation networks received more than $3 billion last year, up from just over $2 billion in 2024, and that activity often spiked during military or political crises.

Nonetheless, critics quickly challenged the mining cost assumptions, with analyst Dasha calling the $1,320 figure “100% fake news,” arguing it relies on household electricity rates that cannot be achieved in practice due to blackouts and shortages.

Hashrate Shocks Are Not New

The objections did not stop there, as miner ZynxBTC dismissed the concern entirely:

Recent U.S. events support that argument. Earlier in the year, the network continued operating even after a severe winter storm forced major Texas miners offline, pushing the hashrate down from 1.133 ZH/s to 690 EH/s in just a couple of days.

However, Perera argued that grid failure differs from voluntary shutdown. According to his analysis, with tensions brewing in the Middle East, a 7-to-10-day air campaign targeting Iranian military infrastructure would likely collapse electricity generation by an estimated 30% to 50%.

He insisted that mining rigs require continuous power, and even brief outages could destroy active operations. As such, he postulated that a strike on Iran’s already fragile grid could see the country’s estimated 2% to 5% share of the global hashrate drop to zero within days, triggering a difficulty adjustment that would extend block times and temporarily spike transaction fees. As CryptoPotato reported, the US and Israel have already launched strikes on Iran earlier today.

Still, others argued that the Bitcoin network has withstood even larger shocks, with researcher Furkan Yildirim noting that China removed more than half of the global hashrate in 2021, yet the network soon adjusted as miners relocated.

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