Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, announced on Wednesday that LaGeo SV, the country’s geothermal electrical company, will be building a plan to establish geothermal facilities for Bitcoin (BTC) mining in the wake of making the crypto officially a legal tender.
“I’ve just instructed the president of LaGeoSV (our state-owned geothermal electric company) to put up a plan to offer facilities for Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcanos,” Bukele wrote in a tweet, adding that he expects the crypto industry to evolve 'fast'.
The announcement was made hours after El Salvador’s legislature passed a bill with a ‘supermajority’ that officially recognizes the world’s biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization as legal tender. Currently, the country uses the US dollar as the go-to fiat currency. As reported by Finance Magnates, 62 legislative members out of a total of 84 have voted in favor of the bill, while 19 members opposed and three abstained.
The bill, which the president himself proposed, touches many areas related to the use of cryptos. It recognizes Bitcoin as a legal tender, scraping all associated capital gains tax. In addition, the country will accept taxes in Bitcoin, and the US dollar will be the ‘reference currency’ when denominating prices. Moreover, the bill mandates ‘every economic agency’ in the nation to accept Bitcoin as payment when offered against goods and services.
Bitcoin Miners in El Salvador
During a Twitter space hosted on Tuesday, although President Bukele refused to answer a question about Bitcoin mining directly, he mentioned that the Central American nation had plans to expand its geothermal infrastructure and development. “We want to promote industrial parks where you can set up your factory, and you will receive cheap, clean, renewable [energy],” he said.
However, he then highlighted that Bitcoin miners could find a proper environment within these upcoming infrastructures due to the cheap and clean electricity.
