Oman is transferring legal mining under the control of a single state pool.
A sovereign approach to regulating cryptocurrency mining is reaching a new level. Oman has officially launched a national mining pool, which all licensed digital asset miners in the country are required to join. This decision fundamentally changes the rules of the game for local operators, centralizing hashrate under state control.
The project was implemented by Oman's Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology in partnership with Frontier Technologies. The key technological link was Enegix Global, which provided the platform for the pool's operation and liquidity infrastructure. At the initial stage, it is planned to consolidate about 10 EH/s of computing power — a significant figure for the region.
It is worth noting that this is not a spontaneous decision. Since 2022, Oman has been actively expanding its presence in the mining industry: total investments in data centers and infrastructure in the Salalah Free Zone have already exceeded $700 million. Special attention should be paid to the $370 million hydro-cooled mining facility — one of the largest projects of its kind in the Middle East.
From my point of view, creating a national pool is a logical step for countries seeking to control energy consumption and monetize local resources. However, for miners, this means a loss of flexibility: the choice of pool and power distribution strategies will now be determined not by market competition, but by government decision. In the long term, this could both increase the sector's stability and limit its innovative potential.