The president of El Salvador says the country is exploring using geothermal energy from volcanoes to mine bitcoin following its decision to make the cryptocurrency legal tender

A bitcoin sign in El Salvador.

Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/Getty Images

El Salvador's president Nayim Bukele took to Twitter on Wednesday for yet another big bitcoin announcement.

This time, Bukele said that he has instructed the president of the country's state-owned geothermal electric company, LaGeo SA de CV, to "put up a plan to offer facilities for #Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcanos."

The move comes after the country passed a law to make bitcoin legal tender on Wednesday via a supermajority (62 votes out of 84 possible).

Bitcoin's price rose roughly 10% on Wednesday to trade around $36,000 per coin after the bullish news broke.

Bitcoin mining's energy-intensive nature has led critics to question its environmental impact over the past few years.

According to data from Cambridge, the bitcoin network's total energy consumption represents about 0.53% of total global energy consumption, and more than 85% of the energy consumed is used in the mining process.

Critics have argued bitcoin mining could exacerbate climate change, while others, including Cathie Wood of ARK Invest, have said that bitcoin's power use will only help boost the adoption of renewable mining and solar power.

In other crypto news, Coindesk reported Chinese consumers are currently unable to search for popular cryptocurrency exchanges including Binance, OKEx, and Huobi on popular Chinese search engines in a sign of potential censorship.

China has been cracking down on cryptocurrency mining for some time, even going so far as to block the social media accounts of prominent crypto influencers over the weekend.

Last month, crypto miners were forced to halt operations in China after the country implemented tighter regulations. Chinese government officials have previously stated they would target the crypto industry to try to reach net-zero emissions by 2060.

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