El Salvador gets hot for bitcoin

Central American country to harness volcanic energy to mine cryptocurrency, which it now accepts as legal tender alongside the US dollar

The small Central American nation of El Salvador sent #CryptoTwitter into a frenzy this week by becoming the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. The government is also bankrolling geothermal-powered cryptocurrency mining to harness the country’s considerable untapped volcanic energy.

Photos by Thought Catalog and Alain Bonnardeaux on Unsplash, dodgy Photoshopping by Seb Kennedy

El Salvador now officially recognises bitcoin as legal tender after a landmark vote in the Senate approved by a supermajority the proposal from the country’s laser-eyed millennial president Nayib Bukele.

The news is significant both for El Salvador — a dollarised economy — and global adoption of the world’s leading cryptocurrency. However, it does not mean the US dollar will be replaced as the reserve currency, merely that vendors must accept it as payment.

Many vendors don’t want to take on the risk of holding and paying suppliers in a notoriously volatile cryptocurrency, so the government…