Oman requires all licensed miners to connect to the state pool.
Oman is taking a decisive step towards centralizing crypto mining. The country has launched its first national mining pool, which all licensed miners are required to join. This decision, initiated by the Ministry of Transport, Communications, and Information Technology, fundamentally changes the industry landscape in the region.
The project is being implemented jointly with Frontier Technologies, while Enegix Global provided the technological platform and necessary liquidity infrastructure. At the initial stage, the pool is expected to accumulate about 10 EH/s of computing power. This is comparable to the capacity of a medium-sized mining pool on the global market.
Interestingly, this move is not a spontaneous decision. Since 2022, total investments in mining and data center infrastructure in the Salalah Free Zone have exceeded $700 million. The key project has been a hydro-cooled mining facility worth $370 million. Such large-scale investments indicate that Oman sees cryptocurrency mining as a strategic asset, not just a speculative niche.
From an analyst's perspective, this is a dual signal. On the one hand, state control over the pool guarantees stability and transparency for investors. On the other hand, it deprives miners of the flexibility to choose a pool with the most favorable fees and conditions. In the long term, the success of the initiative will depend on whether the state pool can offer competitive rates and high reliability; otherwise, miners may start looking for loopholes or going underground.