El Salvador Starts Mining Bitcoin via Volcano’s, 42% of Population Already Using Chivo Wallet
El Salvador has officially started mining Bitcoin using power harnessed from a volcano.
“We’re still testing and installing, but this is officially the first Bitcoin mining from the #volcanode,” tweeted President Nayib Bukele on Friday.
This news comes a day after the president posted a 25-second teaser video captioned “First steps…” which included shots of bitcoin mining rigs and aerials of an energy factory bordering a volcano. It received much love from the crypto community.
Back in June, Bukele had said that he had instructed state-owned geothermal electric company, LaGeo to allow miners to utilize the country’s “very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy” from volcanoes.
With 20 “potentially active” volcanoes, El Salvador is dubbed “land of the volcanoes.” Geothermal energy also accounts for nearly a fourth of its domestic energy production, according to official data.
Earlier last month, El Salvador officially became the world’s first nation to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the US dollar. Following that, the country accumulated 700 Bitcoin to facilitate the conversion of BTC and USD.
The government’s Bitcoin wallet Chivo is also being currently used by 2.73 million people with 180 new users getting onboarded every minute. “1 million dollars in remittances being received every day,” said the president on Thursday.
Already, in less than a month since becoming a legal tender, 42% of El Salvador’s population is using the Chivo wallet and moving money on Bitcoin’s layer 2 solution Lightning Network, whose capacity continues to reach new all-time highs – the latest being 2,972.60 BTC.
