Bitcoin mining still has a foul fame amongst politicians and within the mainstream media resulting from its large energy consumption. Nevertheless, the Bitcoin Mining Council, initiated by Michael Saylor, tries to disprove that this is simply half the reality with its quarterly reports.

Bitcoin is powered by almost 60% green energy. But even on a small scale, BTC mining can do big wonders, in keeping with a brand new report from MIT Technology Review that was shared by Saylor via Twitter.

Virunga National Park is the primary national park on this planet to acknowledge the potential of Bitcoin mining, supporting nature, the park’s endangered mountain gorillas, and the resident community.

Because the report discusses, the Bitcoin mine is powered by the enormous hydroelectric plant on the identical mountain that makes the national park in the course of the Congo Basin the second largest rainforest on this planet after the Amazon. 1000’s of powerful computers are housed in 10 shipping containers that sit in the course of the jungle.

Bitcoin Saves The Park, Drives Sustainable Developments

Emmanuel de Merode, the park’s 52-year-old director, explains that Virunga is in a volatile region known for corruption and increasing deforestation, where foreign investment is as rare as power grids and a stable government.

Because of the lack of tourist revenue from disease outbreaks akin to Ebola, the lockdown resulting from COVID-19, and kidnappings by rebels, the park has been hard-pressed lately and desperately needed money. That’s why de Merode decided to bet big on Bitcoin.

“We built the facility plant and figured we’d construct the network progressively,” de Merode explains and added; “Then we needed to shut down tourism in 2018 due to kidnappings. Then in 2019, we needed to shut down tourism due to Ebola. And 2020 – the remaining is history with covid. […] we needed to work out an answer. Otherwise we might have gone bust as a national park.”

The revenue from BTC mining pays not just for salaries on the park but additionally for infrastructure projects like roads and water pumping stations. Elsewhere, electricity from other hydroelectric plants within the park supports “modest business development.”

In accordance with de Merode, Virunga National Park began mining Bitcoin in September 2020. “After which the worth of Bitcoin went through the roof,” he says. “We were lucky-for once.” In March last 12 months, when BTC was trading at $44,000, the park director was banking on revenue of about $150,000 a month, about what tourism had brought in during its heyday.

But even throughout the recent bear market, BTC was an absolute boon to the park. In accordance with de Merode, on a regular basis mining is pure profit – “so regardless of how much Bitcoin fluctuates in value, so long as it’s positive, it’s profitable.” Thus, BTC is a sustainable game-changer for the national park, which might be a job model for a lot of to come back.

At press time, the BTC price was at $20,853, trading in an overbought territory with RSI at 89.

Featured image from Luc Huyghebaert / Unsplash, Chart from TradingView.com