Bitcoin Forum

El Salvador to mine bitcoin using Volcanic energy, how cool is that? (no pun intended).

https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1442949756993490945

The source is the President himself through his twitter? What can you say about this move?

El Salvador paving the way for "volcanode", Lol.

What he is doing regarding Bitcoin seems great to me, another thing is that I read criticisms of him in other threads, I looked for information and he seems to me a dictator-wannabe. Not for nothing he defines himself on Twitter as "The coolest dictator in the world".

Although mining and legislation on Bitcoin seem to me to be very good ideas, now it only remains for the price to take off for the people of El Salvador to get rid of their doubts.

I like the "Volcanode" Pun. Nice!

It's wise to use that. The geothermal energy from the volcano could be used to power up miners and the mining operations there, which is ideal since it's a renewable energy source. I'm not sure how efficient they can be, but having a lower cost to mine BTC is perfect.

Upon checking the geographical information of El Salvador, they have a hefty amount of volcanoes surrounding them, so it's brilliant as well.

I hope this would be the approach of people mining with all the renewable energy resources to maximize their efficiency and help the environment—no more critics of the "energy-hungry" crypto economy.

Have already read articles about this even before the finalization of adoption of Bitcoin in that country and not the president finally mentioned about this in particular.

The term Volcanode is one cool word to name this project but if this becomes successful then Other countries will surely follow this footstep and many countries will invest and considered accepting bitcoin as well.

and also this is not only for Bitcoin mining because others will also consider mining altcoins in this matter.

He has been teasing volcano mining for a while now. Right?

But yea, another method of mining in a natural way that puts up another middle finger to those people who think Bitcoin wastes too much energy. Not to mention that it's pretty badass as well!

It is really interesting news. I'm hearing about a thing like this for the first time. I've never heard about anyone who used volcanic energy to mine any kind of cryptocurrency. This is going to be the first time I guess. I really wonder if this energy source is fully fitting the crypto mining. If it is productive enough, then I can't wait to see them making it happen.

it's a great initiative and it shows that bitcoin mining also uses clean energy(which isn't new).

damn right, but then again I wouldn't be surprised if they brought up that bitcoin is using more energy than a whole country or another BS that bitcoin is bad blah blah blah.

Volcanic or geo thermal energy? When I saw volcanic energy it reminded me of huge molten firey substance gushing out of earth in a violent manner , how do you safely convert that to energy? I guess he's talking about something less extreme like the typical geo thermal energy.

Hope most miners are not concentrated there. It's better miners are distributed across the world to keep them decentralized and have an antifragile Bitcoin. Issue like this is basically why centralization is bad. I wonder how they will be able to keep the miners or power plants safe if something unpleasant happen at the location.

Reading through an article in Spanish today (*), it seems that the mining equipment arrived last Sunday. The container in the image has "Gobierno de El Salvador" written on it, so I presume that this particular the mining farm is going to be exploited by the Government (as opposed to a private investment), although that is my speculation.

The geothermal powerplant corresponds to one called "Central Geotérmica Berlín", which has been around for over 20 years (see https://www.ecured.cu/Central_Geot%C3%A9rmica_Berl%C3%ADn). I presume therefore that they’ve allocated some space to plug the farm into the network (that's it), but that the exploitation is not new.

Combining the information from the articles referenced on this post, the power plant seems to have a maximum capacity of 109 MW, although the plant is not at full capacity. It also seems to account for 13,3% of the energy required by El Salvador.

(*) Google translated into English:
https://www-criptonoticias-com.translate.goog/mineria/salvador-comienza-minar-bitcoin-energia-geotermica-volcanes/?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=es&_x_tr_pto=nui,elem

This is called an experiment. And this is the way you guys can find out the solution if you want to legalize bicoin and bitcoin mining. If you say you can't approve it for the environment, then you can't. But if you say you will approve it and then do experiment, then we will find the best solution. Then we will give permission to all of you to mine bitcoin. But without doing any research or experiment, if you banned it and didn't care about it, then you are such an idiot. You should be up to date with technology. And technology is the thing that generates all the problems' solutions. And El Salvador is doing the same things. They are experimenting with this technology. And they might be the most advanced country in the technology sector soon. All the best El Salvador 

It's geothermal energy indeed. But it's the geothermal energy the one that creates that "fiery substance" too (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy)  ;)
I'm not sure how it's harvested though. If it's via hot springs it's easy. Else it's them who had to find a way to heat the water using the geothermal energy.

But from my understanding they already have power plants running on this principle, all they've done for now was to bring miners use that energy (and maybe produce some extra for those miners).



Don't worry. This kind of movements actually do decentralization for now. I think that they need much more power plants (and much more miners there) in order to even think on centralization.

Geo thermal energy it is! But anyway if El-Salvador starts bitcoin mining operations, that will go a long way for the network. First ever government investment into bitcoin mining will make the network more centralized and if other governments of the small cointried adopt to the Similar approach, the individual miners will simply have to shut down their operations. Not a good news if we think from a long term perspective as it is not really ideal ti have government miners into the network no matter how friendly they are with bitcoin. I hope this just doesn't become a trend.

He will mine sh****.

1) The powerplant has been there for a long time, as DdmrDdmr has posted,
2) Salvador is a net importer of energy:

So how the hell are you going to use your already existing plant to mine bitcoin when you don't have enough energy in the country to run your current economy without relying on 20% imports?
At this point, this wannabe dictator's credibility is near zero, he has forgotten he has a country to run he needs to pump the coin on Twitter as his main job.

This is quite surprising. If he wants to develop a project for energy generation as he stated, while his country still lacks energy and also minimal money, then Nayib seems to just want to be someone who is considered influential in the crypto world ^{(want to become Elon Musk 2, maybe :D)}. I can't imagine how much budget is needed to create an energy generator for mining bitcoin. Which in fact can be made for the development of things that are more important for the country. There is nothing wrong with the opinion that many El Salvadorans reject BTC, because what Nayib did was a little less planned.

Shouldn't that volcano energy be considered geothermal? Meaning that they're going to spend some money to build an infrastructure in the volacano to harvest energy there so it's likely that we're going to see more resistance from people that opposes bitcoin since they're going to see this as a waste of time even though it's not just bitcoin that it's going to help.

Maybe they already have it tested and it seems like using it as an electric energy to mine bitcoins is quite interesting and innovative. I wonder how well it goes for them and if they become successful in doing it I think there will be another change in the price again since the other miners will mimic their idea but, of course, it has a higher chance to become a norm when people is aguing about the energy consumption of mining cryptocurrencies in their place, they can use volcanic energy instead. El Salvador is trying their best to be a guinea pig by testing its economy by implementing BTC payment and using volcanic energy for mining cryptocurrencies.

I read a bit about him as well, and I don't like him. Even though he's been in power for only 2 years, he already gained a reputation as a right-wing populist and an authoritarian leader. Luckily, though, it seems that El Salvador isn't big on classic dictatorships, since nobody stayed in power for more than 5 years over the last hundred years (correct me if I'm wrong). So chances are that he won't be the first, and in the meantime, he might actually do something good for his country with all this crypto adoption. As for using geothermal energy for mining, it's a good idea because geothermal energy seems to be more eco-friendly (https://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/faqs/geothermal-energy/pros-and-cons) than coal, being a renewable and reliable source of energy.

Using geothermal energy to mine Bitcoin is a wonderful innovation and when things like this are introduced critics will always have a say. However, this shouldn't be a big deal.

I believe he was indeed the coolest dictator in the world as he self-proclaimed because he taking Bitcoin to the next level and showing every country leader what they are missing by not joining the cryptocurrency scheme.

There are still some people in El Salvador that understand the President's intention and those we see in the news that vandalized the Bitcoin ATM are just political opponents doing.

The president dream may just become a reality. According to his tweets in June, he said the country's engineers had dug a new well to provide around 95 MW of green energy, backed by natural volcanic resources. 95MW is no joke. It will yield profit!

I've seen a similar article before and it's really a great move for El Salvador considering that the price of electricity in mining bitcoin is definitely costly. Using geothermal energy as their source of electricity is a great alternative because aside from it being cost-efficient, it is also environmentally friendly because it is a renewable resource. I think most of us are already aware that bitcoin mining really consumes a lot of power, hence some of the countries that have mining sites of bitcoin restrict and limit the mining due to lack of enough power to be used. If they will be able to push this through, bitcoin mining will be cheaper and the environment won't suffer as much due to the additional burning of fossil fuels for electricity. They won't be bothered on where they would get the energy as well because they have abundant volcanoes within their area to use as their source of energy.

I say let the age of Volcano Mining may begin, and other countries should follow if they ever want to escape IMF and central banks debt slavery.
In United States you can find more than a hundred volcanos with eruptions happening almost every year, and most of them are located in perfect location for Bitcoin mining - Alaska.
Other countries with volcanos are Russia, Indonesia, Iceland and I think that Italy with Etna Volcano would be a good candidate, especially knowing their economic situation.
Geothermal energy is great, but I hear that initiative is starting to use not only volcanos, but nuclear energy also.

I will say, El Salvador is in the right direction. It's was a matter of concern mining Bitcoin due to the use of energy. But if we can use natural energy for that, then I think the concern is over in case El Salvador succeeds in mine bitcoin using volcanic energy. I am wondering El Salvador getting an advantage by banning Bitcoin mining in China and also using natural energy. After few days we might hear all mining industries banned from China moving into El Salvador or where generating energy from nature like El Salvador. Those who talked negatively about Bitcoin mining, most likely their mouth will shut up in El Salvador succeed. Let's think positive, and ignore negative.

Volcanic energy is a renewable geothermal energy. So it is technically renewable and it can be used for Bitcoin mining also as it seems. It is going to be a first experience with volcanic energy in this field I guess. El Salvador is still continuing to be one of the firsts to take brave actions. I hope that this can be helpful for the environment to stay better and then maybe the other countries would also start preferring this way.

Interesting. I was wondering how they managed to build the power plant in a short time. I assumed they planned to build one specifically for Bitcoin mining when posts concerning mining in the country first appear on this forum. If they have been using geothermal plants for years, then we can atleast hope they are experienced enough to sustain this without much problem. It initially sounded like an experiment or a new thing

Just few weeks after making Bitcoin a legal tender in their country, with no delay, they pace up in mining the newly acceptable currency with volcanic energy. To me, I think El Salvador is one of the smartest country I've ever known. As the world keeps revolving, clearly with no shadow of doubt, El Salvador will never be left out of the race.

It seems to me that the president of El Salvador is going in hard on using bitcoin, and he has so much trust and belief in its potential and its future to become a global asset, for him to not just accept it and make it a legal tender but to also start mining and using green energy is a genius idea and shows how bitcoin is sees as a resource that will be as good as gold in this day and age that countries will race to get their hands on.

Badass indeed! This do really put up a big slap into the face into those people/institutions/government that do really make out some issue about waste of energy because of bitcoin mining.

Im bit excited on how El salvador would be showing up more on a true acceptance or integration of Bitcoin and other things attached to it.

Many people will change their perspectives towards bitcoin on how this country is making a difference in crypto market. While China is totally banning the usage of crypto as well as miners, El Salvador is doing the opposite. They are looking for ways on how to optimize their opportunities in bitcoin market and now bitcoin mining. Are we seeing this country to be a game changer?

Sure, mining and legislation are two different matters but the guys is getting through them both. The fact that he is looking at volcanic energy to power the mining of BTC is proof of that. I'm not sure how viable the idea actually is but it brings the positivity that this man has for his country and for BTC.

I suppose, all that's left is to wait patiently until the price soars...

Great idea.

Another natural source that will be used for mining, I guess it will be great that they'll have to be natural method for it and maybe the specialists about the green energy would love this.

Or they'll still say something negative?

efficient use of natural resources, where the government uses volcanoes as a source of electricity, hereby elavador is the first country to use volcanoes as energy and here can also explain that mining bitcoin does not interfere with the environment and electricity supply as previously discussed.

It seems El Salvador is trying all efforts to take advantage of Bitcoin, even they start mining to earn more Bitcoin. I don't know if it is a wise decision made by Mr. President, not sure how it will end. But we must admit that Mr. President is really brave to start mining after buying a big number of Bitcoin for his country. We must appreciate him to trust the Bitcoin future, more than those weak holders. For me, Mr. Nayib is a new Hero to support Bitcoin adoption in the world.

An actual madlad that thinks for the benefit not only of his country but for the image of bitcoin as well. Bitcoin mining has always been plagued by huge energy consumption issues, and what better way to address it other than announce that you will be harnessing power from a natural source that has always been  there and that is also completely viable. I'm quite glad that the developments happening on El Salvador is publicized. At least the world knows that progress on bitcoin can be made by a country if they are willing to do it.

Excellent use of natural energy when using volcanic mountain activities for mining. In addition to saving the use of conventional electrical energy, it also provides greater energy.

But the use of natural energy like this must also pay attention to the preservation of nature and make some updates to the natural landscape so that it does not cause negative effects or effects that can damage nature.

On average, geothermal seems to be lower cost electricity than solar, wind or hydroelectric power. The main limiting factor for hydroelectric appears to be volcanoes which el salvador appears to have in ample supply. If the united states cracks down on crypto mining and closes down the industry the way china did, el salvador could be their next stop.

If el salvador has time to consolidate their gains, they should see a big positive impact from their crypto friendly regulation. While other neighboring countries would struggle to produce meaningful economic growth. The stark contrast would be palpable.

There are "protestors" of bitcoin in el salvador. But I don't know why anyone would protest new inventions and technology that can only improve their qualify of life.

Cool, I am wondering how long they have prepared this all. He said this is the first step, this may be hard not easy enough. But always, every step that he took is always surprising. I am sure that he has many great people and professionals behind in order to support his decision.
But, it sometimes will not be easy at all, moreover, there will be other statements again from other countries or popular people to against. Sometimes, that's politics.
Btw, will it be limited?

LOL... Nayib Bukele is trying to kill two birds with the same stone. One one hand, he is taking care of those who criticize Bitcoin mining, claiming that it consumes a lot of fossil fuels. And on the other hand, he has diverted attention away from the untrustworthy power supply from the national grid. I saw the original tweet, where there was a short video of a mining farm being set up. It works for publicity purpose, but in order to catch up with other countries in terms of hash power, El Salvador needs some time.

Actually I like the idea of moving to renewable energy instead of this that has a limit and pollute our environment. I support the idea of using volcanic energy to mine Bitcoin, as it is a really energy consuming process and this way this energy will not be so dangerous for the Earth. It is a smart step of Salvador's president. This way he will reason with those who are against Bitcoin because of dirty energy.

Of course it geothermal,  all the energy in Iceland comes from the same source, but Volcano sounds better, laser eyes, pumping news...
I wouldn't trust any news that comes from Bukele, all he does is media stunts and all are hailing his knowledge because they don't care is it's true or not, it's good for the price then what's the problem?

Take for example his tweet about a 100MW well..there is no such thing! Not in Salvador, not in the world and there won't be any!
The largest wells in the world are 40MW, if anyone in Salvador would have drilled such a well it would have been in the news at the start of the drilling two years ago. One of the most efficient power plants in Iceland has 300MW capacity, but it has not 3 but 90! wells.

Second, the station he shows in the pics is 20 years old and has a capacity of 100MW (https://www.esmap.org/sites/esmap.org/files/5-4%20GGDP%20Day2_El%20Salvador.pdf) , Salvador has two powerplants Ahuachapán 95 MW , 25 wells,  Beriín 109 MW , 36 wells.

But who cares about facts, we need laser eyes!!!
When the news about the China ban came it was all FUD, FUD,FUD!, when the news about the fake amazon deal came nobody criticizes a thing, it didn't matter it was fake, it was a good fake, everyone would love to live in a lie if it brings two more pennies to the price.

Great innovation actually, not only that it can save energy, but using natural resource such as volcanic energy, now that's amazing, I think this will be efficient, and "Volcanode" is a cool name, I don't know much about the president of El Salvador, but this is not only a good leap towards the future for their country, but to future countries who are planning to adopt Bitcoin and make it as their legal tender.

Comments on Twitter were kind of salty ngl, I don't know why but probably just haters on the president's decision to make Bitcoin as their legal tender.

Absolutely and I hope those who are the naive citizen of El Salvador used by the political opponent to vandalized the Bitcoin ATM understand the true intention of their President to make the country well recognized by the world and the crypto enthusiast cause with all this I can see a lot of crypto miners choose the country as one of their next destinations.

For sure it would really hooked up those miners basing on the legality and the source of energy on where they could really make use on mining.I have seen that recent issue about breaking or vandalizing a bitcoin atm

and that was only 1 out of 200 atms which means it isnt really that much of an issue.It is really just great to see that El salvador and its president is really serious on full integration of bitcoin
in the said country.

this would be a catalyst for other possible countries that would do the same path or decision.

What they did is all about politics, everywhere in the world you can see that not all people will support the leaders especially when there is an issue with the system. And what happens to El Salvador is an example. Yes, we don't find it wrong as his intention is to help their economy to grow but the question is how he spends their money on this.

Some people will just think about corruption, some will also think it is a waste of money. These people will just change their insights once they found success in what the President did now, that gonna be a part of the challenge. So he must have to pursue his plan just to prove them that they are wrong.

Perhaps, deflation? lol

I don't know maybe some country would follow but they should never underestimate the market especially when there are whales. The El Salvador president might be laughing right now or chilling but I don't have any idea what would their president would do especially in bearish season?

I'm just amazed how they would make electricity on a volcanic energy but if they could do it why other countries wouldn't do it too? Too much coal and fossil fuels is causing the planet to get warmer and warmer that is causing the green house effect.

It's hard to opine about the president's intentions and execution of the announcements made on his twitter because most of us aren't in El Salvador to see through our own eyes how reality works there. We have to keep in mind twitter has become a powerful political propaganda tool for presidents who don't have the support of traditional medias in their own countries and like in every political propagandas, there is always some artificiality to make the eyes' of the audience shine for the politician's actions.

Without any doubts most reactions are positive regards this idea, but at same time I don't understand why the effort isn't the same to make energy reachable to family houses which still lack this basic service and to decrease the costs of electricity not only for bitcoin mining, but especially for the common citizens.

The use of volcanic energy to mine bitcoins in El Salvador would be a novel case study.
The news is in various digital media and describes how this stage will work in the adoption of bitcoin in the country.

If the international public opinion aware of bitcoin supports this plan by President Nayib Bukeke of El Salvador as well as his fellow citizens who support its management.

Something so novel that we are seeing is progress for the nation, we can agree based on our own experience because we have discovered that investing in bitcoins and cryptocurrencies has improved our lives.

Obviously, like any country in the world, there are problems, not results, that should be addressed to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants.

https://www.coindesk.com/learn/2021/09/29/el-salvadors-bitcoin-volcano-can-be-a-model-for-cleaner-crypto/ (https://www.coindesk.com/learn/2021/09/29/el-salvadors-bitcoin-volcano-can-be-a-model-for-cleaner-crypto/)

The message here is that simply governments (obviously if they can) should with regulations and sustainable alternatives allow mining:
Volcanode¹

Although Bukele is still "humorous" in his statements, this does not take away from the seriousness of his mention;  So "governments" let's add alternatives, not only regulations

In another order of related ideas, it is not very clear what the matter will be with third parties; foreign investors and the Salvadorans themselves...

---

^{[1]@nayibbukele
https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1442953678525067265
4:45 PM · Sep 28, 2021·Twitter for iPhone}

Basically you're saying using renewable energy to mine Bitcoin is a wonderful invention ???
Do you know the socio-political landscape there? Do you know what a dictatorship is? Why do people think that everything is well just because the country decides to recognize Bitcoin as a legal tender, it doesn't mean that the issues within the country disappears. No one else missed out on anything by not recognizing Bitcoin as a legal tender, people are free to use it to transact and it is certainly not at the capacity to support mass adoption either.
Perhaps you need to do some research about their economy first. Dismissing the protest this way, just because you're a Bitcoin supporter is quite disgusting. Having people saying something like this just means that his distraction worked.

A country is done for if a president openly calls themselves a dictator, nevermind the coolest.

Looks like we are now seeing the beginnings of government adoption of Bitcoin. The government of course has the political will to make things happen. Meaning they have the machinery and the manpower to move things to bring miners into the country and be able to mine Bitcoin using the country's resources. Imagine having the support coming from the government, this will definitely attract these miners from moving into their country instead of others.

Well I think it a good idea if El Salvadoreans government can  adopt that method of mining bitcoin the better in as much it doesn't have any effect on degradation of the greenhouse or brings about the climate change and global warming which some Bitcoin opponents has always used to tarnish it mining, afterall the heat from the natural volcanic eruption is being utilized to generate electricity, the country sole action will encourage or attract miners from China to emigrate to their country thus boost social economy of the country.

Even if they have the ability to enforce, they still have to make sure that the public has to agree with what they're doing. But given that an average person is dumb and has a low critical thinking skill, I am pretty sure that we will eventually see the public embracing bitcoin.

I think that can give a chance for their people to follow what the government did to mine bitcoin.
If they see that using hardware to mining crypto can be their additional way to earn more money, they will use it.
But on the other side, it needs to check its infrastructure before applying in its country.
But I am sure that it will be a good step for the government to convert their resources to the newest resources, especially electricity.

I think that it's just a fad.

If this was a viable source of electricity, why hasn't this been done earlier on a large scale?

Reminds me of the many ice rock mining operations that popped up during the 2017 bull run that inevitably collapsed because they weren't scalable, profitable or anything of the sort. They only existed for one goal and that is to generate investment & publicity.

I've never heard of it and no information on google I found except icerockmining (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ice-rock-mining/markets/) is this what you mean?
Volcanic energy mining isn't a corporate brand, it's an official operation of Elsalvador and really makes use of real resources. Distinguish with the brand you mean (cmiiw), a private project accompanied by the creation of new useless altcoins.

Yes I agree with most of you, this is just a fad. Don't get me wrong guys I am all for clean energy and everything but this is not the point of Bitcoin in El Salvador. I think we saw already people got angry there because they felt they were not being helped by Bitcoin. Better to use the volcanic energy to give free power to the people, so they can save more money and buy their own Bitcoin or even propose to use it to heat people's homes for free or for cooking or whatever. And use the savings to build your economy.

Would make sense the first "volcanode" would be state owned and future ones for private exploitation.



This plant was initially presented as the center of a Bitcoin mining hub. I assumed it was mostly built for mining... yes, all 109MW of it  :D
Understood they drill 1-3 km wells until they find underground springs. They have two dozen active volcanoes so there's plenty where this came from.
It also has lots of byproducts like heat, water etc. Saw they use them to dry fruit, water crops and probably other use cases.

They officially started stacking those sats!
Vulcanode FTW  8)

https://i.imgur.com/cOd0YHt.png
https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1443832539496525852?s=20

lucky those countries that has many Volcanoes in their region because now that El Salvador is going to be the very first one to initiate this?
surely others will follow , and actually i am eyeing for my country to follow this footsteps because we have more volcanoes here and many are active as well.
Because none have the guts doing such , and why calling it as a FUD actually not FAD.

we will see if This country succeed in this one then sure more will feel bitter then .

it will be a government mining company, created and managed by the government, the workers of the mining company will be government employees. if things go that way, i wonder when private miners enter El salvador what will the competition be like? How will the incentives for the privates in relation to the source of electricity be compared to the government miners? if he is a dictator then things will only get more complicated for competition


 ;D

i hope that in some time it doesn't become china

Maybe this is not the first time mining uses volcanic energy, but I just heard about this, Mining like this should provide more benefits for miners, because it uses natural energy, but we don't know the exact process.
I am really curious about their mining results, I hope there is a public report for their mining results, so we can know the effectiveness of mining using volcanic energy.

I don't know how relevant this information was but what I read in the news is that at least one Bitcoin ATM was set fire to burn and destroy. However, it is nice that everything seems under control now.

Yes and I like the fact that El Salvador is an inspiration to some countries that feel skeptical about Bitcoin. Besides, the race of Central Banks creates their own CBDC seems to be fast these days.




No, I was is a wonderful idea cause there's a lot of natural thing in our environ that can be used for the betterment of humanity but people don't make use of it.

I don't know their socio-political landscape nor the dictatorship and I don't believe everything will be fine there because their president legalized Bitcoin as legal tender but I was showing support in my own way cause the president is trying to create something for his country and when someone is trying some people need to show support to the person.


People have the right to protest and the last time I checked violence is not the solution to things like this. We know Bitcoin ATMs are expensive.

This impresses me a lot.
He really opens other governments eyes that they are not a weak country as they think because they can use the natural resources to their country.
It is the newest resource for their people that if could develop more, it will help their country to grow rapidly.
I am curious about how much power they have to mine that Bitcoin and how long they get that amount because I think their hardware will be very very good at all.
Salute for El Salvador.

No such thing. Most renewable energy are in fact, not green. Most forms of renewable energy produces environmental impacts, either in the form of its byproducts or through ecosystem damage. If you're thinking geothermal energy is completely green, then I'm sorry that is not accurate. Moreover, they are still an importer of electricity.

It is a diversion. Legalizing Bitcoin does not necessarily mean that their community improves. In a similar vein, it would be worth to compare if North Korea would legalize Bitcoin. It does absolutely nothing to improve their standards of living. The country still lives in poverty, and their lives are not improved whatsoever. The president is not doing anything by legalizing Bitcoin, if anything, he wouldn't have consolidated the power and eliminated the rampant corruption in his government.

Last time I checked, most protests doesn't amount to anything in an authoritarian society. Who cares how expensive Bitcoin ATMs are. The country has one of the lowest standards of living, ffs. If the president isn't doing anything to help improve the situation, then they can protest all they want.

It's good that they can already use those underground springs, then it's not *that* difficult (or expensive).
It would be shame to not use those resources they have there for free.
I really hope that they will build soon (!) more such power plants. It could be more useful/productive than, you know, drying fruits... (nothing bad in that, though).



I've read that the country imports quite a big amount of electricity. Hence using these existing power plants for Bitcoin, while it's nicely presented, is not the best deal for the country.
As I said, they should build more power plants. At the moment they'll mine using the excess energy, then yes, it's all clean and I'll be happy with the outcome. But now, they just use others' dirty electricity for their home/industry needs and then advertise they mine Bitcoin with clean energy... not nice.

It seems like the President is more interested in coming up with these weird ideas that will benefit the country very little than actually solving the day to day situation that people are facing in El Salvador. He is basically an Elon Musk type character, living in a bubble at the top and just toying with people because it will have no impact on them personally. He is focused way too much on the micro instead of looking at the macro situation, but then this is the way of the world these days - everyone wants instant results, gratification and to be some kind of mini celebrity. I doubt Volcanic energy mining will ever grow into a big industry when there are much easier sources of renewal energy out there to access.

A lot of whats been posted just above ^ is right, particularly the green clean energy points.

Its very difficult to create clean energy without first using fossil fuels and releasing carbon to create
the thing which generates clean energy.

They may be mining Bitcoin with clean energy, it may be factually correct. My utopian view would
like to think that Bitcoin will enable El Salvador to reduce its dependence on other nations resources.

I wonder which is less harmful to the environment, creating geothermal power plants with a long
lifespan or creating solar panels and wind turbines with 20 year life spans?

Given the choice I think I would opt for GT

First of all, I know that I am not the type that supports government looking into the matters of decentralized communities, but sometimes this can have its own advantages such as what the  government of El Salvador is doing right now.

Imagine if it was just an ordinary individual, they wouldn’t have been able to initiate something like this. Only the government can carry out a move such as this because they have the power to do it and no one will question them, but if it were to be just an individual who is trying to do this, they would have been punished for it, especially if Bitcoin is not legal in that country.

No knowledgeable person will expect renewable energy to be totally green because whatever has an advantage must also have a disadvantage that's what it is but what I am saying is that it reduce the level of hydrocarbon injected into the atmosphere.

Yes, their community won't improve through the legalization of Bitcoin if the people don't improve themselves and also make use of every new opportunity that the Bitcoin legalization introduced to them. However, those who are smart will make something out of it.

The president may not do anything by legalizing Bitcoin but it showcases the country to the world and people said advertisement is powerful.
I don't like politics and neither did I support corrupted leaders but it is not easy to eliminate when the foundation of politics was built on corruption. An example. Do you hear about some new US presidential elections vote that was detected recently?
Satoshi understands this which is the reason why he/she created something decentralized.

I understand your point but violence can not give them what they want and I understand long ago that depending on the government to provide a certain solution will only lead to frustration that is why I easily overcome the negative habits of every government cause they only understand 3 languages "power, money and selfishness".

It is certainly not green if you're in a country with some dependency on fossil fuels. There is a net gain in carbon footprint, especially if you are incurring opportunity costs by allocating more renewable energy to Bitcoin mining, which means there would be an increase dependence on fossil fuel. Renewable energy facilities are more expensive to build, and claiming that it is cheaper usually comes with the premise that the general population are subsidizing it to a certain extent.
Mandating businesses to accept Bitcoin does nothing to improve their lives. The recognition of it as a legal tender doesn't do anything for the citizens, because their currency is denominated in USD which is far, far more stable than Bitcoin. The price of it doesn't drop by 10% in a matter of hours.
It doesn't. Legalizing Bitcoin doesn't solve the inherent issues that they're facing. North Korea can do the same, but the country will still be rife with poverty and corruption.
No. Corruption has no place in politics, neither is dictatorship. The fact that someone is able to game the system, by amending the constitution to give themselves more power or installing politicians who are known to be corrupted isn't a common place in politics. Accepting Bitcoin isn't the first step in the right direction, the right thing to do is to solve the domestic issues and not try to create more positive PR for his cause and consolidate even more power.

The fact that any politician in the world can declare that they're a 'dictator' is disgusting. It sets a precedent that should never happen in the society that we have today. Again, Bitcoin does nothing to change that. Accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender DID NOT help his country with their poverty or corruption.

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Point is, no matter how much you support Bitcoin, don't negate the larger issue at hand. It is nothing but a distraction from the larger issue at hand.

I am not in the position to say how poor a country is because I really don't know. But in my opinion, El Salvador just want to take advantage on the situation that no country has accepted cryptocurrency and maybe they have the reserve money to invest and use Bitcoin. I think the government has already partnered with some private Bitcoin companies that would manage its assets (maybe?) or possibly act as a consultant and to train natives in managing the coin.

That is really cool intro video. I am not sure how far this will go and what are there plans but if they are setting up the mining operations (the Government) then this is huge leap in the field of technology and employment perspective. If it's government then surely its gonna have lot of jobs to take care of the mining operations and also the Volcanic electricity plant. Not sure how the later one works really but thats freaking cool to hear it. Lolz.
So El salvador first legalised the use of bitcoin and on top of that they encouraged the use of it on daily basis. After that they bought huge amount of BTC ATM and here you go the bonus is on it's way. Just loving the whole thing about El Salvador. I just hope this turns out pretty good.

I'd rather have them tap geothermal and risk the occasional eruption, than tap nuclear and risk the occasional fallout, or accidents transporting the fuel and spent fuel, and the sad place where it ends deposited.

Indeed you don't actually need volcanos, but those are a dead giveaway for geothermal sources. Japan has lots of them, and yet they went with Nuclear... This should have been started in the 60ies or something, they should all close those nuclear plants.

And this of course is not limited to Bitcoin mining, but its the perfect oportunity since it can self-sustain the construction and operation of these plants. El Salvador can later export the excess energy after using it in their own country.

Why not use volcanic energy to mine BTC? The question is, does El Salvador have the technology to extract energy from a volcano? Recently, we can see a lot of loud announcements, which, upon close examination, turn out to be a deception. I am not saying that the President of El Salvador is deceiving, but this message looks too dubious. I think that we need to get more information about this news, and it is best to wait for evidence that this actually works. It's just that such news is most often created in order to influence the price of BTC, but how will it actually be, time will tell.

How possible could this be cause I'm anticipating for such technology that will be convenient and be more easier to extra energy from volcanoes. Maybe he's just trying to make his Bitcoin adoption look cool to people by bringing in simple strategy that can make his followers follow his ideology of accepting is concept. If this is possible to achieve then I think it's a good idea and should be embraced.

I think it is pretty cool of them to harness geothermal energy that are renewable to mine Crypto currencies. The president is showing the middle finger to the greedy Banks and Remittance companies and he is showing Elon Musk and all the pessimists that Bitcoin and other Crypto currencies can be mined by using renewable energy sources.  :D

I cannot see why so many of you are raging on him for doing things that are out of the box.... him being a dictator is bad.... but him being clever enough to show the finger to rich countries .... is funny as fuck.  ;D ;D ;D

I think what you are saying is mere speculation. El Salvador is trying to make other countries aware that investing in Bitcoin is profitable, I hope other countries are motivated to follow in El Salvador's footsteps and make the bitcoin price even higher. whatever the real purpose of El Salvador adopting bitcoin, I keep support them.

No one knows how things will work out for that country. Bitcoin is profitable for the individual users but here you are talking about a country that has recently accepted Bitcoin as a legal tender. Yes, it will help in mass adoption but it is hard to say now whether it will benefit a country and all its citizens. We need to wait and watch for a few years to analyze that.

El Salvador is setting examples for the world, be it legalizing bitcoins, installing atms, using renewable energy for bitcoin mining or anything. They are taking risks and I hope other countries will follow them if they get successful.

So where is Elon Musk now,is he seeing that natural energy is used for mining Bitcoin,hopefully what El Salvador is doing will make many other countries especially those who have volcanoes to start trying this.After many countries hopefully will start doing this I think then it is only natural for Elon Musk to start accepting Bitcoin again for his Tesla cars,which in theory should increase a lot the price of Bitcoin.El Salvador is setting great examples for Bitcoin to the whole world from accepting Bitcoin as a legal local currency and implementing mining from natural resources.

They could have used volcanic energy to reduce its dependency on foreign fossils fuels, but instead they used it to mine Bitcoin.

Talk about wasted potential.

If it is profitable for the individual users, then definitely it is profitable for larger organizations as well. What is the difference? If an institution invests in Bitcoin, it's returns are going to be the same as that for the individual user. I am more worried about the opposition parties in El Salvador using short-term fluctuations in Bitcoin price, to discredit the president Nayib Bukele. Look at the options that they have right now. The other legal tender is USD. If they keep their wealth in USD, although the fluctuations are low there is a good chance that the net worth of their savings will go down in the near future. Especially with the $3.5 trillion spending plan proposed by the socialist wing of the Democrat party in the US.

Just Reading through the posts within the first page of this thread is sufficient to see that this geothermal energy exploitation is one of the country’s important energy origins, covering around 25% of the country’s needs:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5363058.msg58053825#msg58053825
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5363058.msg58054091#msg58054091

Not only that, but it’s been used as a source for energy there for at least 20 years. This is all really a publicity stunt, being hyped here, there and beyond by people and media picturing a node plugged into a lava stream.

But let us admit, this is really a good publicity stunt especially as they embrace bitcoin as legal tender.
I am not complaining because this is good for the crypto market in general.
Their volcanic energy has been established for decades, that's true. But using this to mine bitcoin, is a new idea to most.
So this is the reason why the media is making it as a big news.
Now, other countries with active volcanoes will have an idea where to put their extra energy and maybe become more friendly towards crypto.

It's smart to use that. Geothermal energy from volcanoes can be used to power the miners and mining operations there, which is ideal as it is a renewable energy source. I'm not sure how efficient they can be, but lower cost BTC mining is perfect.
When I look at El Salvador's geoinfo, they have a huge amount of volcanoes surrounding them and this is a great resource and doesn't have any impact on the environment, this is a wonderfully clever creation.

El Salvador has become a house hold name in the crypto world registering his footprint In the sands of crypto times. Using volcanic enery instead of electrical power supply which has been the main source of power for miners  will reduce the high cost of power useage during mining reducing it's cost and making their main source of power interrupted. As a renewable energy source it can also be conserved for multiple useage

It's pretty green. Jan 2021 they reportedly generated ~95% of their electricity from renewable sources. So it would be pretty green as little of the electricity used for mining would be replaced by fossil fuels.

So you like it despite being false because it is good publicity!

And, nor the x time, it's nothing new even when it comes to bitcoin mining, miners in Iceland were doing this 6 years ago, and even the mainstream media was reporting, here is businessinsider (https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-iceland-bitcoin-mine-genesis-mining-cloud-2015-8) and reuters (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bitcoin-genesis-idUSKCN0W52SZ).

So it's nothing new, the only difference is that while Iceland is self-sufficient when it comes to electricity Salvador it's not!


IRENA (https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2020/Dec/IRENA_RRA_El_Salvador_2020.pdf) says 65%


Japan has 3 times more geothermal power than Salvador.
The fact that it doesn't have more is because of the price and the size of the economy, you simply can't run the whole country on geothermal, for example, the entire potential of Salvador is at around 900 W, and this is the maximum capacity not economically feasible, by comparison, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear powerplant has had a capacity of 7,965, nearly 10! time more than the potential of Salvador!

Talk about being ignorant. Who exactly is going to build the power plants, you?

By bringing foreign investors, they will build the plants to mine until it ceases to be profitable, then the country can have them...

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900 what? And where did you even get that figure? Just how many plants do you think you can build to tap power from a volcano, 1?
Japan CAN literally go pure geothermal (or combine with solar, tidal, wind, etc), its just not even funny how much potential is wasted. Just because they produce little doesn't mean they can't produce more. There is a lot of dark incentives and politics involved, so don't get me started how they ended with so many nuclear plants, its a thing of the 60ies, when everyone was praising the power of the atom...

From Salvador's government:
https://www.cne.gob.sv/tema/energias-renovables-2/energia-geotermica/


Probably the researchers that have built those two powerplants and have explored the other sites know better than any of us how many plants you can have one volcano, don't you think?


And you have any number to back this claim?
IRENA claims 23 GW (https://www.irena.org/newsroom/articles/2009/Apr/Unlocking-geothermal-potential-in-Japan-through-small-scale-generation),  potential!, Japan has 282! GW of installed electric capacity.

I expect your next reply to contain at least a figure with a source, not some wild claims like the previous!

It is the government so they can do whatever they want to do as long as they see it as the right source of energy for them to mine Bitcoin. There are so many ways they can mine Bitcoin and if they have checked this method and it seems like a good way to do that then they can go ahead with it. But, I don’t know much about making use of volcanic energy to mine Bitcoin and whether it's going to have any impact in the environment, I think that is very important for them to be considered.

These days we need to make sure that we are using green energy source or when we’re talking about mining or such. And by the way, El Salvador has been breaking records, if they should go ahead with this plan then they are going to be the first to do such.

You need to know, geothermal energy produced by volcanic mountains cannot be renewed or forced to remain active. This is an unpredictable source of energy. It cannot be renewable because geothermal cannot be controlled or transferred like other renewable energies. El Salvador is indeed smart to use geothermal heat from volcanic mountains for Bitcoin mining, but the effects that will be generated must also be there, such as the ambient temperature that will continue to rise, the area around which of course trees must be cut down to make mining warehouses. Natural resources that are distributed like this will not burden conventional electricity and become a good alternative.

we should appreciate what has been done so far by the president of el savador in doing what is considered possible controversy by recognizing bitcoin as a legal tender. It wasn't long before buying enough bitcoins for the benefit of all for the glory of el savador.

now if the president does renewable innovation (volcanic energy) everyone should be able to imitate them, as you said that the government of el savador is serious about doing all that, with the aim of future economic development and of course it can't be instant to prove success.

If a country wants to advance its economic sector with renewable developments, it certainly cannot be blamed and the prospects for the future should be looked at, not now. because the results will be seen after all goes well and is useful.

Actually energy issues about mining bitcoin or altcoins or something in related doesnt really have that extreme effects on what government is trying to picture or tell up to people.

They are just simply making out issues to make it look bad but actually it isnt really that bad but it is really great that they have come up something which do came from natural resource.

Doesnt only limit out on mining activity but of course they could apply on other benefits as well.

Some people say that BTC mining is wasting energy, something that I do not agree at all! Because BTC mining brings us benefit and this is what exactly energy is for.
However, good idea El Salvador. A great move toward providing energy for BTC mining!

in deepest perspective it is indeed there are energy had been wasted in mining , while there are benefits from bitcoin of course.

But what we are looking and doing now is find a renewable energy and natural energy in which will support mining and the conventional energy will be segregated to the people.
 but Yes it is best that EL Salvador is doing their part after accepting bitcoin as their legal tender.

What they’ve just done now at the geothermal station, is add a satellite equipment provided by Blockstream, in order to guarantee their ability to run their node and mine, regardless of whether their internet connection is up and running or not.

Quite a nice stunt implemented during the LaBitConf week event, which gives it all the more resonance. If anybody wants one at home, get ready to cash out somewhere between 500 $ and 900 $ …   

See (In Spanish):
https://twitter.com/BTCGandalf/status/1461169344872919040 (video with explanations from one of the president’s brothers)
https://twitter.com/NoticieroSLV/status/1461123134141128706

(in English):
https://www-criptonoticias-com.translate.goog/mineria/volcanes-espacio-mineros-el-salvador-conectan-bitcoin-via-satelite/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=nui
https://blockstream.com/2021/02/02/en-blockstream-provides-backup-satellite-broadcast-for-bitcoin-core-source-code/
https://store.blockstream.com/product-category/satellite_kits/
https://github.com/Blockstream/satellite/blob/master/doc/hardware.md#satellite-kit-comparison

this is something new because maybe my ignorance but this is my first time seeing something like this.
and this could be one of the initiators for some other countries who are still having problems with electricity about mining at least by using this there are few options and actually this is quite good and it will be interesting to see the progress

Have they released any numbers lately on their mining operation?
English searches are just giving the same results from a month ago and this silence on the amount they have deployed is a bit surprising. Not that I would have expected them to get one exahash in this small time frame but still, some numbers.

I've read something about 300 units being installed, but that would be even with the best gear way too low, or at least low for the hype. It's not even one MW.

This is air pollution, they will ban it soon.  :)

https://www.fi.se/en/published/presentations/2021/crypto-assets-are-a-threat-to-the-climate-transition--energy-intensive-mining-should-be-banned/
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5370213.0

I haven’t managed to see anything specific as to the number and type of asics being used, other than some initial vague references to terms such as "truck loads" or "various dozens", which doesn’t land anything concrete.

In terms of what’s actually been achieved so far, I’m also empty handed when trying to find a local update that goes beyond the 0,00483976 bitcoins reported after the first four days or so.

I wonder if there is a reason for going awol on these updates …

Edit: Around 300 mining equipments (Antminer S19, Whatsminer M30S)
see :https://www.criptonoticias.com/mineria/noti-hash-300-antminer-microbt-minan-bitcoin-volcanes-el-salvador/