Are El Salvador’s Volcanoes Being Harnessed to Power Bitcoin Mining?

Abstract

On october 1th, 2021, international outlets reported El Salvador had just started mining Bitcoin using energy from volcanoes. CNBC published that “El Salvador had mined 0.0059918 Bitcoin, or about US${\$}$269.00 at the time, with power harnessed from a volcano”. Just three months before, president Nayib Bukele had instructed state-owned geothermal electric company, LaGeo S.A. de C.V., to “put up a plan to offer facilities for Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcanoes.” But how true it was to put up a geothermal electric power plant in three months? Was it profitable to mine Bitcoin from a geothermal source? This has not been the kind of transparent government, information has been hard to acquire. However its need for publicity and its desire to appear as a technology savvy government made them show some details of their mining operation. An early analysis has shown up there was no new power plant nor profit on mining crypto. Bitcoin mining bet appears to be backfiring, showing the gap between false promises of producing crypto money and economic realities.