After you have officially accepted the bitcoin as currency, El Salvador began cryptocurrency mining using geothermal energy from the country's volcanoes. The announcement was made on Friday by President Nayib Bukele.
“We are still testing and installing, but this is officially the first bitcoin mining from a volcano,” said Bukele on Twitter. Days earlier, on Tuesday, the President of El Salvador published a 25-second video in which it is possible to see technicians installing mining equipment, in what Bukele, without giving further details, said were the “first steps” in cryptocurrency mining .
Since September, the Central American country is the only one in the world to accept cryptocurrency in the economy. President says geothermal energy mining is in the testing phase.
We're still testing and installing, but this is officially the first # Bitcoin mining from the #volcanode 🌋
- Nayib Bukele 🇸🇻 (@nayibbukele) October 1, 2021
According to CNBC, so far, El Salvador has extracted 0.00599179 bitcoins, equivalent to $269. In June, 40-year-old President Nayib Bukele instructed LaGeo SA de CV, the state-owned geothermal electricity company, to put in place a plan to mine bitcoin using energy from volcanoes in a country where there are 170 volcanoes.
First steps ...
🌋# Bitcoin🇧🇷 pic.twitter.com/duhHvmEnym
- Nayib Bukele 🇸🇻 (@nayibbukele) September 28, 2021
Three months later, Bukele announced that the small Central American country, which has the US dollar as its official currency, would accept bitcoin as its currency. Since then, El Salvador is the first and only country in the world to accept cryptocurrency in its economy.
With this measure, which is being watched around the world, amidst enthusiasm and skepticism, El Salvador hopes to save on fees of hundreds of millions of dollars a year in transfers made by citizens of the country living abroad.
