Geothermal energy, an underutilized resource in the crypto industry, is being used by El Salvador to mine Bitcoin in a clean and environmentally friendly way.
El Salvador has already mined its first satoshis, the lowest unit of account of Bitcoin (BTC), using geothermal energy. Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, recently shared part of the facilities of his new bitcoin mining center powered by geothermal energy, coming from his volcanoes. From this mining center, the first bitcoins have already been extracted 0.00599179 BTC or 599.179 satoshis, equivalent to about US$287 at the time of this writing.
BTC was mined with energy from a volcano for the first time in the country, a historic event for El Salvador.
Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, the largest institutional investor in Bitcoin with over 114.000 BTC in its possession, applauded El Salvador’s initiative. Saylor noted that the Central American nation is converting thermal energy into digital energy, “which can be exported anywhere in the world and stored without energy loss.” Cryptomining engineer Brandon Arvanaghi said that Bitcoin is “the largest accelerator of renewable energy development in history.”
El Salvador's Bitcoin mining center is still a project under construction, but it is already bearing fruit and showing the world the opportunities that cryptocurrency offers without affecting the environment. Bukele clarified that El Salvador, the first nation in the world to make Bitcoin its legal tender, will build a 100% carbon-free crypto mining center, which will allow the extraction of Bitcoins in a clean, respectful and friendly way with our environment, in addition to facilitating the monetization of this energy source.
Although El Salvador's initiative has captured many eyes, Iceland is one of the first countries in the world where geothermal energy has been used to mine bitcoins on the network.
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Bitcoin Mining in El Salvador
As reported by CNBC, Bukele clarified that the construction of this bitcoin mining center is just the beginning of an inaugural journey toward mining the cryptocurrency with energy from a volcano.
Bukele is working with a team of experts and El Salvador's state-owned geothermal electricity company, LaGeo SA, to boost the future and development of the nation, which now has Bitcoin as the flagship of an era of change, progress and revolution.
By adopting cryptocurrency as legal tender in the country, El Salvador is motivating several countries in the region to create new regulatory frameworks that allow the legalization of the use and commercial activities with cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Now, with the construction of its Bitcoin mining center with energy from volcanoes, a resource that has been underutilized for this lucrative industry until now, Bukele is showing the world a new way to sustain the most important cryptocurrency globally without harming the environment.
Energy consumption
Bitcoin's energy consumption, although proven to be less than 0,1% of all energy consumed in the world, has sparked quite a bit of controversy. Compared to the traditional banking system, Bitcoin consumes less than 50% of what banks and financial institutions demand to keep their systems, offices and headquarters operational.
Despite its low consumption compared to other industries, BTC network miners have been studying new alternatives to reduce the network's energy expenditure without sacrificing its operation and security. In the United States and Russia, several miners have implemented new alternatives to take advantage of the surpluses of the oil and gas industry, transforming them into clean energy to power bitcoin mining equipment. In Canada, environmentally friendly alternatives have also been implemented to support the cooling systems of crypto mining equipment, guaranteeing its operation with low consumption and impact.
Likewise, manufacturers of these hardware devices are creating more energy-efficient devices that guarantee high performance with low consumption.
Clean energy
Like El Salvador, several local governments have also been encouraging bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining through renewable energy sources. For example, in Miami, the city's mayor Francis Suarez is calling for BTC miners to operate with nuclear energy, which is low-cost and carbon-free. The same is true in the state of Wyoming, where Senator Cynthia Lummis is inviting BTC miners to operate on clean energy.
In Latin America, Paraguayan lawmaker Carlos Rejala wants to make the country a leader in sustainable Bitcoin mining. Rejala presented a bill that, although it will not make Bitcoin legal in the country as El Salvador did, does seek to encourage mining and promote financial and technological development and innovation through new technologies.
Other countries such as Uruguay, Panama and Brazil are encouraging the approval of new regulations that allow for the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. Even Cuba established regulations to legalize the use and trade of cryptoassets within its territory.
Salaries in Bitcoin
In other news, El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly has spoken out against a proposal to prevent the payment of salaries in bitcoin. Deputy René Portillo asked the members of the Assembly to issue a special decree to make it clear that the salaries of Salvadorans should be paid only in US dollars and never in cryptocurrencies. However, his proposal was rejected by the majority of the Assembly.
Although the use of bitcoin in the country is completely optional, as Bukele has pointed out many times, just as he has said that salaries are paid in dollars, the company Athena gives employees the possibility of receiving their salaries in bitcoins. The company's website shows that employers can offer the cryptocurrency as payment option for your employees, who can choose whether or not they want to receive a percentage of their salary in BTC through Chivo Wallet.
To date, Chivo Wallet, the bitcoin wallet developed by the state, has more than 2,7 million active users and manages nearly $1 million in bitcoins through remittances.
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