• In a first for the country, El Salvador has mined 0.00599179 bitcoin, or around $269, using power generated from a volcano.
  
• In a tweet on Friday, Bukele indicated that the mining project was still a work in progress and and that they are in the process of “testing and installing” new mining equipment.

With the power harnessed from a volcano, El Salvador has mined 0.00599179 bitcoin, or around $269.

President Nayib Bukele, who has staked his political future on a statewide bitcoin experiment, announced the country's first foray into volcano-powered bitcoin mining on Friday morning.

On Tuesday, Trump released a dazzling 25-second teaser film that shows a government-branded cargo container full of bitcoin mining rigs, technicians installing and plugging in ASIC miners, and sweeping landscape aerials of an energy factory in the middle of a forest, near a volcano.

The video's title merely reads, "First steps..." and has received over 2.3 million views since its release.

If the Central American country is minting new coins, it means Bukele has followed through on a promise he made in June, when he said he had instructed LaGeo SA de CV, the state-owned geothermal electric company, to “put up a plan to offer facilities for #Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100 percent clean, renewable, zero-emission energy from our volcanos.”

On Friday, in a tweet, the mining project is still in the works, according to Bukele, who stated that they are “testing and installing” new mining equipment.

The president also provided a breakdown of the mining rewards so far.

Bitcoin mining using volcanoes has been around for a while.

“It's basically geothermal energy,” remarked Alejandro de la Torre, a bitcoin miner who just relocated from China to Texas. “Iceland has been doing it since the very beginning of bitcoin mining,” according to the author.

El Salvador is known as the "Land of the Volcanoes," and according to government data, geothermal energy already accounts for nearly a fourth of the country's domestic energy production.

El Salvador's move is also good news for the bigger discussion about bitcoin's carbon footprint.

Bitcoin mining engineer Brandon Arvanaghi said, ??A wholly renewable, untapped energy resource has been put to work just because of bitcoin.” “Bitcoin is the most powerful catalyst in the history of renewable energy development.”

El Salvador became the first country to declare bitcoin legal tender just weeks ago, prompting this foray into mining.

The government added hundreds of bitcoin to its balance sheet as part of the rollout, and developed its own national virtual wallet, dubbed "Chivo" after Salvadoran slang for "cool," that allows for no-fee transactions and speedy cross-border transfers.