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El Salvador, the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, has reportedly added 473.5 BTC to its treasury using geothermal energy. According to reports, official data released by The Bitcoin Office of El Salvador (ONBTC) disclosed that this number of bitcoin was mined since 2021 using 1.5 MW of power from the Tecapa volcanic complex.
El Salvador Produced 473.5 BTC Using Geothermal Electricity Sources
Companies and nations are leveraging green energy sources for mining bitcoin. According to Reuters, The Bitcoin Office of El Salvador (ONBTC), an organization dedicated to managing all things crypto, reported that 473.5 BTC had been added to the nation’s bitcoin treasury. The bitcoin was obtained in El Salvador’s mining centers, which have been powered using geothermal energy since 2021.
The bitcoin was harvested by 300 miners in the Berlin geothermal plant using the energy provided by the Tecapa volcanic complex. These cryptocurrencies are part of the over 5,750 BTC that El Salvador currently holds in its public treasury address, disclosed by President Nayib Bukele earlier this year.
Bukele had made several remarks about taking advantage of geothermal energy, a kind of power obtained from steam harvested from reservoirs located under the earth to run turbines. He even posted a video showing the start of the operations in Berlin geothermal plant, featuring the connection of some bitcoin miners. Nonetheless, this is one of the first opportunities in which Bukele’s administration offers some balance about the results of this green mining initiative.
The project might be expanded, given that only 1.5 MW of the 120 MW produced by the Berlin plant is currently used for this objective. In 2022, Bukele confirmed the country had been making investments to increase the capacity of its geothermal power grid, disclosing that it had found a well capable of producing 95 MW back in 2022. This could be all the electricity needed to power Bitcoin City, a metropolis announced by the president in 2021 that would be moved by green energy.
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