Kish Island is located in the Persian Gulf.

The picturesque tourist island of Kish, located in the Persian Gulf, will soon become a mecca for crypto exchanges looking for a captive and dependable source of power, and financial carrots to set up operations in the island. (Financial Tribune)

Kish is already a well-developed tourist destination boasting of malls, hotels, and tourist attractions. It also has a free trade zone. What’s more, the power generated on the island cannot be repatriated to mainland Iran, so it can be easily ported to mine cryptocurrency. Muhammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s ICT Minister, on a recent visit to Kish proposed to transform the island into a hub for domestic and international cryptocurrency exchanges.

“Kish has the infrastructure to emerge as a hub for international crypto exchanges in the region. Authorities need to start talks with neighboring countries,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.

The 91-square-kilometer island which is also a designated free trade zone, will likely be made into a “financial free zone.

According to the Tribune, twelve cryptomining farms are already operating in Kish Island, Maku and Aras free trade zones as well as in Payam Special Economic Zone in Alborz Province, Shiraz Bushehr and Rafsanjan special economic zones.

Though trading in cryptocurrencies is banned in Iran, their mining is not.

Recently, the Central Bank of Iran said banks and licensed moneychangers can use the digital currency mined by authorized miners in Iran to pay for imports.

Abolfazl Rouhani, the deputy chief of the High Council of Cyberspace, said recently according to ISNA: “Cryptos could help the country bypass sanctions in a limited number of cases.”

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