Cryptocurrency Mining in Iraq: Risks, Reality, and What’s Really Happening

When you hear cryptocurrency mining Iraq, the practice of using electricity and hardware in Iraq to validate blockchain transactions and earn crypto rewards. Also known as Bitcoin mining in Iraq, it’s not a tech startup dream—it’s a survival tactic for some, a gamble for others, and a legal gray zone for nearly everyone. While countries like the U.S. and Germany have clear rules, Iraq’s energy grid is crumbling, internet access is patchy, and the government has banned crypto trading outright. Yet people are still mining. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s one of the few ways to turn chaos into cash.

Here’s the catch: Iraq’s electricity, a system plagued by daily blackouts and unreliable supply, often subsidized by the state is the real engine behind this underground activity. Miners plug into unofficial power lines, sometimes stealing from neighborhoods already struggling with 12-hour outages. The crypto mining hardware, ASIC rigs and GPUs that run 24/7 to solve complex math problems for Bitcoin or Ethereum runs hot, loud, and expensive—yet some still buy them on credit, hoping the value of mined coins will cover the bill. It’s not a business plan. It’s a bet on survival.

And it’s not just about money. Iraq blockchain, the use of distributed ledger tech for government services like land registry and customs is slowly being explored by officials—but only for public infrastructure. Mining? That’s still illegal under Law No. 194/2020, the same law that blocks banks from processing crypto transactions. Yet enforcement is inconsistent. In Basra, a miner might get a warning. In Baghdad, he might get raided. Meanwhile, the global crypto market keeps moving, and some Iraqis are using mining as a backdoor to access dollars, not just digital coins.

What you’ll find in the posts below isn’t a list of mining rigs or how-to guides. It’s a collection of real stories, legal warnings, and market shifts that connect to what’s happening on the ground in Iraq. You’ll see how crypto bans in Egypt and UAE affect regional behavior, how scams prey on desperate miners, and why even failed projects like ZIGChain or ANTS still draw attention in places with few financial options. This isn’t about speculation. It’s about people trying to build something stable in a broken system—and what it costs them to try.