- In June 2023, Tether made investment in El Salvador to build Volcano Energy.
- Tether is the most widely used stablecoin globally.
Crypto mining is a contributor to rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions because of its energy intensive process. Paolo Ardoino, CTO of cryptocurrency company Tether Limited Inc., believes mining Bitcoin (BTC), the largest crypto asset by market cap, needs better analytical tools to aggregate mining data.
Tether CEO Sees Scarce Analytical Tools For Mining Data
In his post on social media platform X, he explained the rapid increase in the scale of Bitcoin mining. Tether is developing tools to aggregate mining data to deliver accurate outcomes. Data associated with cryptocurrencies, mining or transactions, is extracted depending on what aspects a project agrees to track.
Tether is investmenting heavily into sustainable Bitcoin mining. In May, the company announced the investment of an undisclosed sum for sustainable BTC mining in Uruguay. The country holds a treasure of abundant energy efficient resources. Furthermore, the data shows renewable energy makes 94% of the nation’s electricity.
Analysts say one Bitcoin transaction can consume power equivalent to 100K VISA transactions. In addition to that, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), an environmental research organization, says BTC estimatedly to eat up as much energy as a country like Norway annually.
Crypto mining is an energy intensive process. Traditional mining setups involve high power computing devices that solve complex mathematical solutions to mine blocks. However, blockchains using proof-of-stake (POS) consensus mechanism are thought to be more energy efficient.
In June 2023, Tether invested in El Salvador to build Volcano Energy, a renewable energy generation park. The project will reportedly generate 241 Megawatts of electricity annually. Additionally, the output will provide computational power of over 1.3 exahashes (EH/s) per second, the announcement read.
El Salvador is amongst the most Bitcoin-friendly countries. The nation adopted the crypto asset as a legal tender during September 2021. Notably, people are having a rough time using BTC as a payment method. Technical glitches and market volatility have made the BTC payment method a cumbersome activity.
Nayib Bukele, the country’s president, promised them the move would digitize the economy and lower dependency on the United States dollar. The government even created their official electronic wallet labeled Chivo Wallet. The issues associated with the app, however, soon shattered user confidence towards the application.
Market Downturn Isn’t Helping
A good chunk of crypto assets lost value this week. Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH) plunged by nearly 10%. Litecoin (LTC) emerged as the biggest loser among top 50 cryptocurrencies. Concurrently, Fear and Greed Index at CoinMarketCap shifted left, currently at 37, it indicates increasing fear among the community.
Bitcoin halving next year could deliver positive outcomes in context to price. However, it will also increase mining difficulty. Mining revenue may suffer if the value fails to attain a profitable range. An analyst recently predicted that halving could take Bitcoin soaring near $150K.
