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El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

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Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#31

Post by dadoge »

gjulianm wrote: post #21
dadoge wrote: post #4

Remittances, things like wire transfers, account for 22% of their GDP. Bitcoin will give that money back to the people with the way lower cost of transfers, esp through the Lightning Network that is planned to be widely used. Elizabeth Stark boldly said 7 yrs ago and Bitcoin is like TCP and needs an http, and then built Lightning on top of Bitcoin and this is super exciting to see. EDIT: removed “fees”, it’s just rem…

If I'm not mistaken, that 22% is not fees, but the actual wire transfers from people abroad [1,2]. IMHO, it doesn't indicate that transfers are too expensive, but that a lot of people can't find enough work or support in El Salvador and they need to rely on family/friends that emigrated. I don't know how that is going to be solved by Bitcoin. 1: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?lo... 2: https…

They will literally have more money in their pockets.

Good things happen when people have more money in their pockets - people save more, invest more, build more.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#33

Post by epigen »

garydevenay wrote: post #23
epigen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this seems to be a majorly misunderstood concept. It seems you misunderstand. Illicit fiat and extortion can be used to access energy to mine Bitcoin, effectively laundering that illicit fiat.

This scenario doesn't have any particular features that make access to energy or mining bitcoin the differentiating factor. Illicit fiat and extortion can be used in order to launder illicit fiat in many ways. The underlying problem actually lies in the fiat system, not the Bitcoin one.

> The underlying problem actually lies in the fiat system, not the Bitcoin one.

How so?

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#34

Post by jMyles »

graderjs wrote: post #17

It just gets better and better. - ES makes BTC fiat - ES taps volcanoes to mine BTC What next? - ES uses natural wormholes to plot the future timeline and win Earth?

> makes BTC fiat

Did I miss a memo?

Or is this a sort of Freduian slip wherein you said 'fiat' when you meant to say 'official'?

It seems to me that we've been conditioned to conflate the two.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#36

Post by vidarh »

graderjs wrote: post #17

It just gets better and better. - ES makes BTC fiat - ES taps volcanoes to mine BTC What next? - ES uses natural wormholes to plot the future timeline and win Earth?

ES has not "made BTC fiat". It is making it legal tender. All that means is debts can be settled with BTC.

As for "tapping volcanoes" it's a PR exercise - El Salvador is one of the countries in the world with largest geothermal generation capacity.

"Tapping volcanoes" here in effect simply means mining bitcoin with part of their geothermal generating capacity. But "tapping volcanoes" got this a whole lot more attention than it otherwise would.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#37

Post by lucb1e »

Almost half the electricity produced in El Salvador is from fossil sources (they don't have nuclear power): https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.PETR.ZS?location...

Option A: invest in that volcano and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Option B: invest in that volcano and mine bitcoin.

B makes them richer so long as other people keep expecting Bitcoin prices to rise (increasing demand), so I can see why they do this, but I'm not sure I like it. Even if the equipment, installation, and operation are all compensated for, it's wasting renewable energy on making heat and some money by gambling on future demand of a PoW-based system. But for a poor country, making money to get up to rich country living standards makes sense so... I can't even fault them.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#38

Post by hvacarchivist »

hulitu wrote: post #11

Is this paper a subsidiary of the Onion ? "100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcano" . So when a volcano is depleted you plant another one ?

>Volcanos have zero emissions

Volcanos are only emissions.

I would like a one-way ticket to Mars, please.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#39

Post by StavrosK »

garydevenay wrote: post #20
StavrosK wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the rest of your comment, but there's some sleight of hand here: > This turns effectively "wasted" energy in to a solidly efficient energy store for infinite amount of time— for example: 1 BTC will always be equal to 1/21000000 of the total supply. It's not an efficient energy store if you can't get the energy back, it's just energy usage. Also, yes, 1 BTC will always be the same fraction of the total su…

I think that's a fair comment. Re-using the word "energy" in that sense is potentially misleading to always mean electrical energy. As for the value of 1 BTC, it's value fluctuates if you operate on a base currency which is not BTC, but that is the same for any currency exchange. (I am suggesting currency, though I also understand that BTC may not be unanimously agreed on as a currency— but in El Salvador's case it i…

> As for the value of 1 BTC, it's value fluctuates if you operate on a base currency which is not BTC, but that is the same for any currency exchange.

Yes but also, even though 1 BTC will always be worth 1 BTC, the amount of work it buys you won't be the same, as with any currency. In theory, you can also store USD for an infinite amount of time (assuming you exchange the paper for new paper when it decays), but it, too, won't hold its value.

Re: El Salvador Plans to Use Electricity Generated from Volcanoes to Mine Bitcoin

#40

Post by ceejayoz »

dadoge wrote: post #31
gjulianm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not mistaken, that 22% is not fees, but the actual wire transfers from people abroad [1,2]. IMHO, it doesn't indicate that transfers are too expensive, but that a lot of people can't find enough work or support in El Salvador and they need to rely on family/friends that emigrated. I don't know how that is going to be solved by Bitcoin. 1: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?lo... 2: https…

They will literally have more money in their pockets. Good things happen when people have more money in their pockets - people save more, invest more, build more.

I have a sneaking suspicion the folks with "more money in their pockets" from this are most likely to be President Bukele and his friends.
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