It seems like a dream to mine Bitcoin in Iran with subsidized electricity that allows it to cost only around US$1,320 per BTC, but in reality it's only legally viable with a government license.
Licensed miners are required to sell all mined Bitcoin to the Central Bank of Iran (which uses it to finance imports and circumvent international sanctions); unlicensed operations are considered illegal with a constant risk of equipment seizure and crackdowns.
This explains why the country represents a tiny fraction of the global hash rate.
This is exactly why I stopped looking at mining purely through an energy-cost lens years ago. The economics only make sense if you own the coins you mine—otherwise you're just selling hash power to a government at a discount. Iran's licensed miners are essentially operating as currency conversion services for the Central Bank, not building actual Bitcoin infrastructure. The real mining story has always been about jurisdictions where miners can be sovereign participants in the network, not state-controlled operators. Places with higher electricity costs but actual legal frameworks end up more resilient long-term because the operators have real incentives to stay online and secure the network, rather than just extracting value for sanctions evasion.