El Salvador recently legalized Bitcoin as a legal tender. Not quite there, they also started mining the cryptocurrency using geothermal energy from volcanoes.
As quoted by detikINET from CNBC, President Nayib Bukele has just shown a video of a container full of Bitcoin mining machines. Then there are several energy plants located near the country's volcanic region.
"Step one," the president wrote in the video, which has been watched a million times. There have even been Bitcoins that have been successfully mined even though the value is still very small, around USD 269. For now, the mining is still in its early stages.
Bitcoin mining itself is often the target of criticism from environmentalists because it wastes electricity and in turn, wastes resources such as coal. It is feared that this will have a negative impact on the future of the Earth, especially in the midst of the threat of climate change.
Then renewable energy from volcanoes might be the solution because it is considered clean for mining Bitcoin.
"Our engineers have just informed us that they are excavating a new facility that will provide approximately 95MW of geothermal energy which is one hundred percent sneezing and zero emissions from our volcano," the president claimed last June.
With the recent boom in Bitcoin mining raids in China, miners may look to other countries. The approval of Bitcoin as a means of payment as well as a clean mining process will make El Salvador one of the destination countries.
Countries like Iceland have also started to become popular locations for Bitcoin mining. Just like El Salvador, Iceland is rich in geothermal energy from the country's many volcanoes.
