El Salvador plans to build a "Bitcoin city" near a volcano that will be funded by cryptocurrency, the country's President Nayib Bukele announced on Saturday.
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The city will have residential and commercial areas, services, entertainment, restaurants and an airport and will be built near the Conchagua volcano in southeastern El Salvador.
Construction will begin in 2022 and the city will have no taxes other than value added tax (VAT).
In June, El Salvador passed a law making it the first country in the world to accept bitcoin as legal tender.
In September, thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the law, fearing that the introduction of cryptocurrency could lead to instability in the Central American nation.
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The country has also released a bitcoin wallet to allow citizens to use the cryptocurrency.
El Salvador also plans to raise about $1 billion through a “Bitcoin Bond” in partnership with Blockstream, a digital asset infrastructure company. Half of the funds will be used to purchase bitcoin, while the other $500 million will be allocated to energy and bitcoin mining infrastructure, the government said.
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Mining is the energy-intensive process of creating new bitcoins by solving cryptographic puzzles. El Salvador said it plans to use geothermal energy from the volcano to power its electricity.
Bitcoin has fallen about 16% from its record high of $68,990.90 reached earlier in the month.
Information source: bleepingcomputer.com
