Bitcoin Price Rises Above USD 36,000 After El Salvador Becomes First To Adopt Crypto As Legal Tender

The Latin American nation El Salvador will mine the cryptocurrency using geothermal energy from its volcanoes

Representative Photo

New Delhi: The volatility in crypto markets continues to persist as Bitcoin price once again breached $36,000 on Thursday morning after hitting a record low in the last three weeks. The bitcoin has hit a three-week low at $31,025 on Tuesday on the back of institutional investor warning and regulatory attention led to selling.

What’s the reason behind this surge in bitcoin price?

The world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading at $37,182.49 at 0720 hours IST on June 10. The surge came amid the historic adaptation of Bitcoin as a legal tender by El Salvador. It became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as a legal currency. The Latin American nation will mine the cryptocurrency using geothermal energy from its volcanoes.

Around 62 out of 84 votes, a majority of lawmakers voted in favour of the initiative to approve the cryptocurrency as a legal tender. Bitcoin was up around 30.8 per cent from the year’s low of $27,734 on January 4.

El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele said on Twitter on Wednesday that he has instructed state-owned geothermal electric firm LaGeo to come up with a plan to offer bitcoin mining facilities using renewable energy from the country’s volcanoes. “This is going to evolve fast!," he added.

In another tweet on Thursday, Bukele said that the country’s engineers have dug a new well that will provide around 95 MW of 100 per cent clean and zero emissions geothermal energy from the volcano. “

El Salvador remained among the few countries globally, which didn’t have its own fiat currency and used the US dollar which still be a legal tender in the country.

The move to legalise bitcoin will be closely watched, and it will be interesting to see what happens once this shift takes place.

Othe cryptocurrencies including Ether, Binance, Dogecoin, Cardano, XRP also witnessed a surge on Thursday.  Ether, the coin connected to the Ethereum blockchain network, also climbed on Thursday. The second most popular cryptocurrency was trading 5.27 per cent higher higher at $2,566.40 on Thursday morning.

While Dogecoin, which was created as a parody cryptocurrency, increased 7.59 per cent, Binance Coin also rose nearly 10 per cent.