While in El Salvador they learn to mine Bitcoin, in Venezuela they prohibit it
Key facts:
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El Salvador seeks to consolidate itself as a bitcoiner nation.
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Venezuela was a pioneer in regulation, but now it is left behind.
While El Salvador is making great strides with Bitcoin education, the opposite is true in Venezuela. The situation of miners in the country is news due to the ban on the activity imposed by the government. A contrast that highlights the great differences that exist in the policies on the cryptocurrency ecosystem implemented in Latin America.
According to local newspapers in El Salvador, young people from the National Institute of Usulután (INU), one of the most important secondary education and technical career institutions in the country, They are learning to mine Bitcoin using an “individual mining pool” and your own node. This allows them to use their own computational resources to mine the digital currency through computational processes.
The teaching is part of My New School, a program supported by the country’s Ministry of Education, and since the beginning of the year was integrated into the educational system of the Central American nation.
As CriptoNoticias reported, it is a program promoted directly by the government and that It will be taught in educational institutions during 2024. It started with the Node Nation SV project, through which young people were taught how to code, configure, operate and manage liquidity of a Lightning node.
The objective is to enhance the skills and abilities of students with knowledge about the pioneer of digital currencies, reported the Minister of Education, José Mauricio Pineda, who shared the progress of the program on his account on X.
As Minister Pineda explains, learning about Bitcoin mining is part of block five of the educational program, whose purpose is for young people to know how to configure and operate a mining pool.
«It’s interesting, they give us good information, learning and motivation, because we also learn by playing. They give us prizes for participation and it is very good,” said one of the students when asked about his experience in the project.
El Salvador thus presents an optimistic and favorable outlook, both for the use of bitcoin and for the development of the entire industry, since not only is it the only country in the world in which BTC is legal tender, but also has its own mining pool. It was recently learned that the nation has already mined 470 bitcoins in a farm installed at the Berlin Geothermal Power Plant, in an activity that has the full support of the State.
These facts are totally contrary to what is happening in Venezuelawhere miners are currently facing a series of raids and equipment confiscation.
They are government actions that They are destroying the progress that has been made. in the sector and that had turned the South American country into one of the pioneers in terms of ecosystem regulation. This, taking into account that in 2018 Venezuela already had an entity to supervise the sector: the National Superintendency of Cryptoactives and Related Activities (SUNACRIP).
Then, in 2020, a decree gave legal status to Bitcoin mining, a status that, until then, had been given in very few countries. However, the progress made seems to be lagging behind with the measures applied after the outbreak, in 2023, of a corruption scandal that included former superintendent Joselit Ramírez.
After more than a year immersed in uncertainty, the Bitcoin mining situation became more complex. Now with the ban on the activity, the Venezuelan government takes a measure with which it justifies, holding the miners responsible, due to the failures presented by the country’s electrical system. The outlook looks quite uncertain, since even activities related to digital mining – such as the sale of equipment and technical service – have been affected by the situation.
