A man buys in a store that accepts bitcoins in El Zonte, El Salvador.

El Salvador Plans To Use Electricity Generated From Volcanoes To Mine Bitcoin

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2021-06-11 10:30:02

A man buys in a store that accepts bitcoins in El Zonte, El Salvador. Stanley Estrada/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

The president of El Salvador announced Wednesday that the country's state-run geothermal energy utility would begin using power derived from volcanoes for Bitcoin mining.

The announcement on social media came just hours after the Central American nation's congress voted to make the cryptocurrency an acceptable legal tender.

"I've just instructed the president of @LaGeoSV (our state-owned geothermal electric company), to put up a plan to offer facilities for #Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcanos," president Nayib Bukele tweeted. "This is going to evolve fast!"

Bitcoin mining has taken a lot of heat for being harmful to the environment, since it requires massive amounts of electricity to power the computers that generate the invisible currency.