On-Chain War: How Bitcoin Became Iran's "Digital Oil"
Key Events
On June 21, after the U.S. airstrike on Iran's nuclear facilities, Bitcoin's total network hash rate plummeted 25% within 24 hours—not due to market fluctuations, but due to widespread power outages at mining farms within Iran.
Bitcoin: Iran's "Hard Currency Printing Machine"
1. A National-level Arbitrage Machine
Cost $5,000/coin, market price $60,000+, profit over 10 times
Electricity cost ≈ 0: Revolutionary Guards built their own power plants, prioritizing power supply to mining farms
2023 Data: Of Iran's 180,000 mining machines, 100,000 belong to the military/religious foundations
2. Financial Pipeline to Bypass Sanctions
BTC → USD → Military Procurement: On-chain settlement evades SWIFT blockade
2020 Energy Consumption Benchmark: Burning 10 million barrels of oil for mining (accounting for 4% of annual exports)
3. Hash Rate Equals National Power
Mining farms consume approximately the same electricity as two nuclear power plants, directly requisitioning civilian power during shortages
The June hash rate crash exposed a key fact: Iran's BTC mining scale is sufficient to impact the global network
A New Dimension of Geopolitical Games
More flexible than oil: BTC can be instantly exchanged for USD, EUR, CNY
More covert than gold: On-chain transfers are difficult to trace and freeze
Latest Trend: Russia, North Korea, and Venezuela have all established similar mining-foreign exchange systems
"This is not a cryptocurrency belief, but a survival necessity."