Bitcoin has been in the news since the beginning of this year. First the approval of Bitcoin ETF in the US, then the prices reaching new record highs kept Bitcoin in the headlines. Now Bitcoin is in the news again and the reason this time is also very interesting.
In fact, the Central American country El Salvador has mined billions of dollars worth of bitcoins in the last few years. Interestingly, this small country has taken the help of volcanoes in mining bitcoins. The way bitcoins have been mined makes this whole episode the most interesting. The government treasury of El Salvador has also benefited a lot from this.
Official recognition in this country
El Salvador is the only country in the world where Bitcoin is officially recognized. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele likes Bitcoin. He officially recognized Bitcoin during his first term. His second term has started this year. Bukele’s El Salvador government has also worked on measures to promote Bitcoin mining in the country.
The value of the treasury has increased to this much
For this, a separate government department called Bitcoin Office has been created in El Salvador. The Bitcoin Office says that after the new bitcoins found in mining, 5,750 bitcoins have now been deposited in the country’s treasury. So far, 474 new bitcoins have been added to the treasury in mining started in the year 2021. In this way, the total value of bitcoins in the treasury has become equal to about 354 million dollars.
What is Bitcoin Mining?
Actually, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency based on blockchain technology. In blockchain technology, new blocks are created as units, which form an endless chain. As this chain grows, new units of Bitcoin are created. This entire process is called Bitcoin mining. Heavy computing/processing capacity is required for this work, which consumes huge amounts of electricity.
This is how help was taken from the volcano
The government of El Salvador installed 300 heavy processors in the country for mining bitcoins. The electricity used to run these processors is produced from the energy of the active volcano Tecapa. Mining bitcoins using electricity produced by using geothermal energy from the volcano, on one hand, green energy was used without spreading pollution, on the other hand, valuable new bitcoins were deposited in the country’s treasury.