El Salvador president Nayib Bukele floated the idea of a “rent your volcano to mine Bitcoin BTC/USD” policy in the wake of the country’s successful geothermal-powered mining venture.
What Happened: On Sunday, Bukele took to X to share the success of El Salvador’s Bitcoin mining venture. He suggested that, given the nation’s abundant geothermal power potential, a business policy of renting volcanoes to mine Bitcoin might “make sense.”
Bukele was reacting to another X user’s post on the country’s stockpile of 474 Bitcoins mined with geothermal power, which swelled to $46 million due to the leading cryptocurrency’s ongoing bull run.
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Why It Matters: El Salvador’s plan to tap its geothermal power led to the idea of the ambitious Bitcoin City project.
The city, located near a volcano, is expected to be powered by geothermal energy, exempting all of its activities, including Bitcoin mining, from all taxes except for the value-added tax. It is planned to be a full-fledged metropolis, complete with residential and commercial areas, restaurants, an airport, and a port and rail service.
To finance the development of the city, El Salvador even introduced a “Volcano Bond,” also called a Bitcoin-backed bond.
El Salvador, the first nation to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender, has been strategically investing in the cryptocurrency under Bukele’s leadership.
As of this writing, El Salvador holds 5,944.77 Bitcoins in its treasury, worth more than $583 million at current market prices.
Price Action: At the time of writing, Bitcoin was exchanging hands at $98,122.26, down 0.20% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
Photo by Gobierno Danilo Medina on Flickr
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