The President of El Salvador, President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, recently succeeded in posting some mining numbers on Twitter. The country’s developing volcanic mining facility appears to have produced the first bitcoin.
volcanic bitcoin
as I showed By Bukele earlier today, the gains made by the volcano are still small. However, the boss seemed so excited to start the project, that he showed off his new numbers along with a single heart shaped emoji.
At the time of publication, the facility had not received any bitcoin payments. However, the image showed a payment of 0.004 BTC pending and about 0.006 BTC preparing to be mined. In total, the facility was about to receive about one-hundredth of bitcoin – or $470 at today’s prices.
“We are still testing and proving, but this is officially the first bitcoin mining from #volcanode,” Bukele said.
The president shared a video of “the volcano” a few days ago, including an aerial view of his new mining facility. The footage showed electricity being generated using the volcano, along with a man arranging a series of ASICs. The revelation – which he called “first steps” – received overwhelmingly positive feedback via Twitter.
Similarly, Bukele received many congratulations on this outstanding achievement today, including from the famous Bitcoin HODLer Michael Saylor.
HODLing and environmentally friendly mining
The new facility contributes to El Salvador’s apparent effort to HODL with as much bitcoin as possible. Less than two weeks ago, the country bought another 150 bitcoins, bringing its total holdings to 700. This came just days after the country became the first ever to legalize BTC as a payment method.
It is also an environmentally friendly method of mining by using the untapped energy inside the volcano with no carbon cost. Bitcoin’s Proof of Work system has been criticized by many for being too harmful to the environment due to its energy use. However, the environmental damage caused by the largest cryptocurrency tends to be exaggerated, with nearly half of its hashing power generated from sustainable sources.
Even Elon Musk, who stopped accepting Bitcoin payments in May due to climate concerns, admits that the network is already becoming more sustainable.
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