How El Salvador Is Mining Bitcoins With Volcanoes
How El Salvador Is Mining Bitcoins With Volcanoes, cryptocurrency is quite literally blowing up in Latin America right now why because of a visionary new scheme in el Salvador to mine bitcoin using energy drawn from an active volcano could this bold initiative solve the nation’s chronic poverty and silence crypto’s pesky environmentalist critics join us today as we scale the caldera and look into.
How el Salvador is mining bitcoin with volcanoes earlier this month el Salvadorian president nayi buckle tweeted a short video clip unveiling his country’s glossy new geothermal electricity plant the brief clip also showed engineers receiving delivery of shipping containers full of bitcoin mining rigs.
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And technicians busily installing application-specific integrated circuits or Asics we’re still testing and installing red the presidential tweet but this is officially the first bitcoin mining from the volcano so what’s actually going on back in June the el Salvadorian parliament passed a law declaring bitcoin legal tender in the small Central American nation.
El Salvador fascination with Cryptocurrencies
The country’s other official currency is presently the u.s dollar the plan hopes to help el Salvador ride an international waiver fascination with cryptocurrencies and ultimately drive much-needed investment into a nation where 70 per cent of the population lack basic access to traditional financial services.
That means banks as well as adopting bitcoin as formal legal tender bhukela’s government also sets out plans to provide the necessary training and mechanisms for Salvadorans to access and engage with transactions involving bitcoin in case anybody was wondering.
What tiny el Salvador has to offer the world as a futuristic crypto hub president buckle offered this tantalizing hint to accompany his June announcement I’ve just instructed the president of our state-owned geothermal electric company to put up a plan to offer facilities for bitcoin mining with very cheap 100 clean 100 renewable zero-emissions energy.
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Volcanoes evolve usage for Cryptocurrency
From our volcanoes this is going to evolve fast he had it as if to underline his commitment to the crypto cause Stukeley also changed his Twitter avatar to a doctored photo of himself with laser blue eyes a popular meme among bitcoin fanatics so what’s at stake here cryptocurrencies currently have a dreadful reputation among environmentally conscious consumers.
Who argues the carbon footprint of crypto mining is unacceptably high bitcoin’s energy consumption is related to its hash rate or the speed at which mining computers can solve mathematical problems to unlock the next charge of coins bitcoin mining is said to burn through some 129 terawatt-hours of juice a year.
Google Energy Usage
Google’s entire net energy usage by contrast is a mere 12.4 terawatt-hours over the past two years alone bitcoin mining has added 40 million tons of co2 to the atmosphere or the equivalent of an additional 8.9 million cars suddenly driving on the road bitcoin is already a bigger emitter than American airlines.
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And is fast catching up with the entire us government’s carbon footprint el Salvador’s argument is that volcanic energy is essentially free it doesn’t require the burning of dirty fossil fuels and thanks to el Salvador’s geographic location perched on the rim of the so-called pacific ring of fire there’s no shortage of volcanoes.
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In fact, there are at least 20 active volcanoes within its borders and they already supply about a fifth of the country’s traditional energy requirements to be clear the volcano itself won’t directly power the mining operation instead heat from its scalding molten core will be harnessed to boil water.
Which will in turn generate steam that drives turbines el Salvador’s progressive approach to bitcoin has already run into teething problems on September 6th just one day before it legally adopted the world’s most popular cryptocurrency El Salvador’s central bank splashed out on 400 bitcoin worth about 21 million dollars.
Policy for Price Bitcoin Plummeted
The following day after the policy was formally rolled out the price of bitcoin plummeted to its lowest level in nearly a month from around 52 000 to a little under 43 000 still according to the country’s shiny new bitcoin laws businesses has to accept bitcoin when and where the technology is available citizens aren’t compelled to use bitcoin.
If they don’t fancy it but are incentivized to do so by the government there’s already a state-backed wallet called chivo and any citizen who downloads chivo onto their smartphone is instantly rewarded with thirty dollars value in bitcoin Salvadorans have proudly shared images on Twitter of these crypto windfalls.
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Since using the wallet and president Michelle has already declared the scheme a success 2.1 million Salvadorans are actively using chivo wallet, not downloads he tweeted chivo is not a bank but in less than three weeks it now has more users than any bank in el Salvador and is moving fast to have more users than all banks in el Salvador combined this is wild.
World Bank and IMF Concerns
However, the world bank and the IMF have both expressed scepticism of the rollout arguing that environmental concerns surrounding bitcoin remain valid for the time being and that cryptocurrencies are still too volatile for nation-states to bet their solvency on them doubtful Salvadorans took to social media.
To suggest that high levels of illiteracy in their nation make its population ripe for online scammers and that the country just isn’t ready to make such a complicated leap into the financial unknown moreover internet access is spotty with only a small minority enjoying access to up-to-date devices and fast connections still it’s not all doom and gloom tech firm.
Athena Bitcoin has publicly committed to investing one million dollars installing as many as one and a half thousand cryptocurrency ATMs across el Salvador these ATMs would enable citizens to exchange bitcoin for us dollars and vice versa president buckle’s manner of rolling out these controversial proposals has been criticized as dictatorial.
El Salvador Dictator and Change of Twitter Logo
Which inspired him in a Trumpian flourish to change his Twitter bio to el dictador masculine del Mundo Mundial earth globe Americas in English that’s the coolest dictator in the world earth globe Americas the notion of using volcanoes to mine bitcoin isn’t even all that far-fetched Iceland already has a proven track record for harnessing geothermal power.
For its extensive crypto mining activities the proof of el Salvador’s volcanic success will all come down to the efficiency of its miners and whether or not they can offer investors a competitive ash rate what do you think will el Salvador’s scheme pave the way for a cleaner greener crypto future let us know in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe for more lava minute tech content
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