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Welcome to Latam Insights, a compendium of Latin America’s most relevant crypto and economic news from the past week. In this issue: El Salvador will offer bitcoin certification for public servants, Mercado Libre launches an in-house developed dollar-pegged stablecoin, and Paraguay keeps seizing illegal bitcoin mining operations.
El Salvador to Educate 80,000 Public Servants on Bitcoin
El Salvador is investing to educate its public servants on bitcoin and its operation. The Bitcoin Office of El Salvador, an institution created to oversee all projects related to bitcoin, recently disclosed that 80,000 public servants of the country will receive bitcoin instruction and knowledge certification via a module part of the Public Administration curriculum imparted by the Higher School of Innovation in Public Administration (ESIAP).
President Nayib Bukele created ESIAP in August 2021 as the institution in charge of “strengthening public administration through the implementation of training and research programs aimed at all civil servants and public officials nationwide.”
The bitcoin topic is part of a module of the Public Administration certification, that has nine different modules and can be completed in 160 hours virtually and asynchronously. The seventh module, which includes the bitcoin topic, also includes other related subjects such as blockchain, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Mercado Libre, Latam’s Largest Company, Launches Own Dollar Stablecoin
Mercado Libre, the largest company in Latin America by market capitalization, has launched its second cryptocurrency project. The e-commerce giant recently released meli dolar, an in-house developed dollar-pegged stablecoin designed for the Brazilian market. The stablecoin was developed in partnership with Ripio, an Argentina-based cryptocurrency exchange, and is issued by Meli Uruguay S.R.L., a company of the Mercado Libre group.
The token is already available as part of the Mercado Pago portal, the company’s payment processing subsidiary. There, users can purchase and sell this stablecoin to maintain a stable balance in their wallets during this first rollout phase.
National Power Administration of Paraguay Seizes 693 Miners in Illegal Bitcoin Mining Operation
The Paraguayan government is still chasing illegal bitcoin mining operations. On Wednesday, employees from the National Power Administration of Paraguay (ANDE) seized a shed in Hernandarias city, detecting an illicit bitcoin mining operation that hosted 693 mining machines.
The detection was possible due to the implementation of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, which allowed technicians to analyze the power consumption of the area, registering a significant increase. In addition to the 693 miners, a 4,000 KVA transformer was also confiscated.
While some illegal operations of this kind bypass the power meter completely, in this case, operators tampered with the meter, allowing some of the power used by the facility to be registered, but not all. The official ANDE report states that the meter only registered 749,5 kW, while the true power load reached 2,151 kW. This allowed the operators to save 65% of their operating costs.