Data Backup Digest

While the cryptocurrency market has definitely had its fair share of ups and downs, these next-gen funds have received some significant backing from some unexpected sources as of late. None are more unexpected than El Salvador. The fact that they've recently made Bitcoin legal tender in their country made headlines on its own, but they immediately followed that up with another, much bigger announcement – at least on a physical scale.

To complement their recent embrace of Bitcoin, governmental engineers with El Salvador will recently begin using the country's volcanoes – of which they have 23 that are currently active – to mine for Bitcoin. If all of this sounds highly complicated, that's because it is.

What is Bitcoin Mining?

Bitcoin mining involves high-powered computers that have dedicated hardware and software resources to solving highly complex computational math problems. We're not talking about simple equations here. These problems are so complex that they are impossible to solve in one's head or even by hand. Math problems like this are challenging for even the most powerful of next-gen computers.

As one might expect, Bitcoin mining consumes quite a bit of electricity. For this reason, it's something that's not really feasible by the average user at home – at least not on any sort of productive scale. Instead, it's a task that's often taken up by supercomputers are large, interconnected systems known as clusters or pools.

But these aren't just meaningless math equations. They're all tied to a specific Bitcoin transaction on the blockchain, and it's the job of these computers to verify each transaction in a timely manner. With so many transactions taking place at any given time, the backlog is always full.

That's exactly where El Salvador comes into play. By converting geothermal energy from their volcanoes directly into usable electricity for the country's citizens, government engineers are certain that they can mitigate the extreme power consumption required by large-scale Bitcoin mining operations.

Harnessing Volcano Power

El Salavador's latest project is definitely the first of its kind. According to the country's president, Nayib Bukele, the country's geothermal electric company is already making progress on a mining hub that will provide energy that is 100% clean and renewable. It will also be very cheap to operate and maintain when compared to other forms of electricity.

A recent tweet by Bukele shed some more light on their plans: "Our engineers just informed me that they dug a new well. What you see coming out of the well is pure water vapor."

He was of course referencing a newly dug well that sits on the side of an active volcano. Despite the country's enthusiasm about the project as a whole, very few details have been released surrounding the massive undertaking.

We don't have any word of a timeline for the project, either, but Bukele remains enthusiastic on social media. He recently tweeted an image of one of El Salvador's volcanoes that showed a rainbow behind it. To say he's optimistic about the endeavor would certainly be an understatement.