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File image of the Bitcoin (BTC) logo on a cryptocurrency ATM at a store in Weehawken
By Alvaro Murillo
SAN PEDRO DE POÁS, Costa Rica, Jan 11 (Archyde.com) – A modern plant that houses hundreds of powerful computers connected to the cryptocurrency business works in Costa Rica thanks to the clean and cheap energy provided by a small river in the middle of coffee plantations. reed beds and forest.
More than 650 machines from 150 customers operate non-stop from eight containers fed by a hydroelectric plant a few steps from the Poás River, 35 kilometers from the capital San José, recognized for generating 98% of its energy with clean sources.
But the plant resurfaced from paralysis following the success of an experiment that was born from the need to take advantage of electricity, which following 30 years, during the pandemic, the State stopped buying them because of surpluses in the country, where a monopoly governs public on the sale of energy.
“For nine months we were detained and exactly a year ago they told me regarding bitcoin, blockchain and digital mining,” said Eduardo Kooper, president of the family business that owns a 60-hectare farm, Data Center CR. “I was very skeptical at first, but we saw that this consumes a lot of energy and we have a surplus,” he added.
For the hydroelectric company, with its three plants valued at $ 13.5 million and capable of producing 3 megawatts, it was enough to invest $ 500,000 to enter the business of hosting digital mining computers.
Kooper said that the international miner seeks clean energy, cheap energy and internet connection, and Costa Rica has ample capacity, although he criticized what he called the slowness of the laws in his country to adapt to new technologies.
Costa Rica lacks specific regulation for cryptocurrencies, unlike its Central American neighbor El Salvador, which in September was the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.
The president of the Central Bank of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Cubero, said in August regarding the circulation of cryptocurrencies: “Space is given to technological innovation to allow the emergence of the Fintech industry, and its evolution is continuously monitored.”
Until now, all Data Center CR clients are local, such as Mauricio Rodríguez, a 31-year-old engineer who specializes in computer security who entered digital mining from his home in 2021 with equipment that cost him $ 7,000, to earn extra money. .
“Installing it in this place is much more profitable than having it with home electricity,” with almost half the cost, Rodríguez calculated, following configuring the computer and connecting it to the network located next to the river that feeds it.
(Report by Álvaro Murillo. Edited by Miguel Angel Gutiérrez)