El Salvador president teases geothermal Bitcoin mining farm

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele shared a video showing the apparent progress of the country’s Bitcoin (BTC) mining plant powered by volcanic geothermal energy.

The video shows an overview of a power generation facility with technicians enabling crypto mining rigs.

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) September 28, 2021

Bukele did not elaborate much on the process shown on the video, only writing “first steps” with a Bitcoin tag alongside emojis depicting a volcano and El Salvador’s national flag. The president’s office did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

The post comes months after Bukele announced plans to build a geothermal Bitcoin mining facility. The president said in June that he would be instructing state-owned electrical company LaGeo to manage a Bitcoin mining plant powered with “very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy.”

El Salvador officially accepted Bitcoin as legal tender alongside U.S. dollars on Sept. 7, just three months after the nation’s Legislative Assembly passed the “Bitcoin Law.”

Related: Bitcoin’s power consumption this year has already surpassed all of 2020’s

The latest move by the Salvadoran government reaffirms the massive potential for Bitcoin proponents to cut BTC carbon footprint using a wide number of renewable energy sources, including hydroelectric, solar and wind power.

According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Bitcoin already hit its benchmark on renewable energy in July, suggesting that the percentage of renewable energy usage was “likely at or above 50%.