Senators press Biden administration on Iran crypto mining

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Angus King (I-Maine) pressed the Biden administration for information Wednesday on how it is addressing Iran’s use of cryptocurrency mining to evade sanctions. 

“Iran has raised millions of dollars through mining crypto—a steady revenue source that allows it to purchase imports, move funds domestically and internationally, and fund Hamas and other terrorist organizations,” the senators said in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. 

“This ongoing activity by the Iranian government threatens our national security,” they added. 

Crypto mining, the process of verifying crypto transactions and minting new tokens, has become “increasingly lucrative” for Iran, which is subject to numerous U.S. and international sanctions over its nuclear program, Warren and King said.

Bitcoin mining, in particular, funneled more than $186 million onto Iranian crypto platforms between 2015 and 2021, and Tehran was one of the top eight Bitcoin producing countries as of 2021, the pair noted in their letter.

Warren and King asked the Biden administration for information about Iran’s use of crypto mining, the extent to which crypto has been used to “fund terrorist organizations, military actions, or weapons development,” and steps the administration is taking to address the issue. 

Warren, one of crypto’s most outspoken critics in Congress, similarly pressed the administration about Russia, Iran and North Korea’s use of crypto to evade sanctions in a letter alongside Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) earlier this week.

In the Monday letter, Warren and Marshall specifically raised concerns about Russia’s use of the stablecoin Tether to obtain arms for its war against Ukraine despite U.S. sanctions.