Oman centralizes mining: all licensed companies are required to operate through a state pool
Oman is taking a decisive step toward centralizing cryptocurrency mining. The Sultanate has officially launched a national mining pool, which all licensed digital asset miners in the country are required to join. This means that private and corporate miners will no longer be able to independently choose their pools for operations — the state is taking full control of this process.
The initiative was implemented by Oman's Ministry of Transport, Communications, and Information Technology in cooperation with the local company Frontier Technologies. The key technology partner is Enegix Global, which provided the pool management platform and liquidity infrastructure. This configuration allows the state not only to track mining volumes but also to directly influence the distribution of hashrate and commission income.
At the initial stage, the national pool aims to accumulate about 10 EH/s of computing power. For comparison, this is comparable to the capacity of a medium-sized public mining operator. However, Oman's strategic goal is to increase this figure by leveraging the region's geographical and energy advantages.
Since 2022, investments in mining and data centers in the Salalah Free Zone have already exceeded $700 million. The largest project is a hydro-cooled mining facility worth $370 million. This indicates that Oman is not just regulating the industry but is purposefully investing resources in building its own cryptocurrency mining infrastructure.
My comment: Oman's decision is a vivid example of how Middle Eastern states are moving from passive observation of the crypto industry to active management. Creating a mandatory national pool is a double lever: control over hashrate and the ability to influence reward distribution. For miners, this means a loss of flexibility, but for Oman, it strengthens its position as a regional hub. If other Gulf countries follow this example, we may witness the fragmentation of the global mining landscape along national borders.