President Nayib Bukele pointed out in his tweet that the country’s mining project was still in progress, but that it was already being done in the process of testing and installing the new mining equipment.
So El Salvador could already use volcanic energy 0.00599179 Bitcoin, i.e. about 269 U S-dollar, mine. This means that the Central American country can already Bitcoin , but has not yet managed to create a “complete” Bitcoin from volcanic energy. The flagship of cryptocurrencies was launched on 7. September 2021 officially introduced as legal tender.
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First steps towards volcano bitcoin
El Salvador’s president published a 25-second teaser video on Tuesday showing footage of a government branded container full of Bitcoin mining rigs. Technicians installing and connecting ASIC miners as well as sweeping landscape shots on the edge of a volcano were also on view.
The video, which was simply titled “First steps…”, was already much more called 2 million times.
El Salvador is not reinventing the wheel
Even if Bitcoin mining with geothermal energy is not an invention “Made in El Salvador”, this public move is a boon for the general debate about the Bitcoin’s carbon footprint.
“It’s just geothermal energy,” said Bitcoin miner Alejandro de la Torre, who recently moved from China to Texas.
“Iceland has been doing this since the beginning of BTC mining.”
Whether the author or not, one thing is clear – Nayib Bukele obviously holds his promises.
He strives for low mining costs and low environmental impact – so it is almost logical, like El Salvador, the “land of volcanoes”, the necessary energy for mining.
Bukele turned to the state-owned geothermal energy company , LaGEO SA de CV to seek help with his Bitcoin move .
At that time, the president spoke of rapid developments in the direction of clean Bitcoin mining – and that should prove to be true. The first groundbreaking in the direction of Vulkanpower Bitcoin took place only four months later.
Geothermal energy is a huge step forward
N after details of the International Geothermal Association about 25 percent of the country’s energy comes from the two geothermal fields in Ahuachapán and Berlin. The Berlín field, which has been in operation since 2005, is considered the most successful in all of Latin America.
It remains to be seen to what extent El Salvador Bitcoin can really only be mined using volcanic energy. But one thing is certain: it is a huge step forward – on the one hand for the independence of the Central American state, on the other hand also for a greener future for Bitcoin and other proof-of-work based blockchains.
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