Lake in Guatemala Cleaned Through Bitcoin Mining
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Loading... - Fiona Cullen
- 17 Oct 2022
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A Guatemalan Bitcoin circular economy known as “Bitcoin Lake” is taking advantage of Bitcoin ASICs to clean Lake Atitlán, generating income for the community.
As Bitcoin Lake founder Patrick Melder explained, the “Kaboom” mining project is repurposing used cooking oil to help mine Bitcoin, rather than polluting the local environment.
As Melder told Bitcoin Magazine, the project is a continuation of previous attempts to clean up the lake that turned out to be expensive and unsuccessful.
“Over the past five years, a major effort to clean up the lake, which cost over $300 million, failed because it was too complex, with so many stakeholders not being able to agree on a solution,” he added.
On the other hand, Bitcoin Lake has taken a bottom-up approach to ecological sustainability.
The project involves repurposing used cooking oil to mine Bitcoin, which would otherwise be dumped on the street or in the landfill above Lake Atitlán.
“Either way, it would find its way to the watershed and the lake,” Melder said.
By contrast, although the mining process produces carbon dioxide, it reduces lake contamination.
The founder hopes to popularize the initiative in neighboring communities as they realize they can clean up the environment in a viable and profitable way.
In the United States, concerns about the negative impact of Bitcoin mining on the environment are still common among regulators. However, several reports have outlined ways to help heal the environment, such as burning too much natural gas.
Melder’s broader “Bitcoin Lake” project – of which “Kaboom” is a part – has three goals: cleaning up the lake, educating the community about Bitcoin, and creating a circular Bitcoin economy. This includes spreading the adoption of Bitcoin as a store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account. Read More...
