El Salvador harnesses volcano power for bitcoin mining

As crazy as it may sound EL Salvador has a new project in which they plan on harnessing the power of volcanos in order to mine Bitcoins. Despite being a small country, El Salvador has 30 volcanos, out of which 20 are believed to be potentially active. Volcanos can be a great source of geothermal energy which can be used as a green and cheap energy source. This can be seen as a great step for other cryptocurrency farms around the world to find green alternative energy sources in order to: one save on costs and two, be more environmental friendly.

El Salvador has Bitcoin as an official currency which has had mixed reaction from its citizens but it is seen as a huge step forward for the future of cryptocurrency. The city of Berlin, 112 km south of the capital city San Salvador, has a geothermal plant that was built in 1999. The plant is composed of 16 2,000 to 3,000 deep shafts from which steam circulates and makes three turbines function. The energy generated by those turbines can reach up to 107 megawatts, out of witch only are enough to power the infrastructure for Bitcoin mining. The rest of the energy that is being generated here is used for the country’s grid.

Desire for crypto grows in Nigeria

The desire for crypto is growing stronger and stronger in Nigeria despite threats of an official clampdown. Ebuka Joseph, a Nigerian art dealer started using cryptocurrencies last year during the period when businesses were failing due to Covid. Nigeria’s Central Bank barred local banks from working with cryptocurrencies in February, warning of “severe regulatory sanctions” and freezing accounts of firms that mentioned using them. But despite all this, Joseph’s appetite for crypto, like that of many others in Nigeria, has only increased. For people like him, the threats of regulations and clampdown only accentuated the benefits of using currencies outside the control of a central bank, further emphasizing the immense need of a decentralized system where people have control over their own money.

The desire for freedom is something that seems to be engrained in people and it will forever remain there be it financial or any other kind. Crypto is proving to be a huge leap forwards towards a future where people have a lot more if not all the control over their own money and assets.

Bitcoin reaches record high value amid ETF debut

But what is an ETF and can it help the crypto world or be a detriment to it. An exchange-traded fund allows investors to easily buy a whole basket of investments. Some of the most popular ETFs track things like the S&P 500 index of big US stocks, the price of gold or high-yield bond indexes. Unlike with a traditional mutual fund, which prices just once a day, investors can buy or sell an ETF throughout the trading day. That’s particularly important for cryptocurrencies, whose prices can swing sharply from minute to minute, let alone day to day. The first exchange-traded fund (ETF) linked to Bitcoin launched on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Experts say it is likely to drive investment into the cryptocurrency but it may be a hard sell for Bitcoin fans who want to cut out the middleman. If crypto will have signs of going the way of the centralized system that has driven corruption in banks for so many decades we might see a backlash from people that adopted it precisely because it is a decentralized version of the order we are currently used to.

A Bitcoin-related ETF would give investors a new way to get involved in the fast-growing field of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s price has more than doubled this year, and a growing number of investors see it as a way to offer their portfolios some protection.