The announcement comes ahead of the halving event.
Tether is close to finalizing its $500 million Bitcoin mining project, as revealed by CEO Paolo Ardoino in a recent interview with DL News. Ardoino said the fund has been channeled into establishing mining facilities and renewable energy plants in Uruguay, Paraguay, and El Salvador.
“In El Salvador, there is a set-up phase,” Ardoino explained. “We are first focusing on building renewable energy stations. Starting from solar and wind, and then moving towards geothermal.”
This move follows Tether’s announcement of its goal to become a leading mining entity last November.
In May last year, Tether revealed that it invested resources into energy production and inked a partnership with an unnamed local licensed company to launch a sustainable Bitcoin mining operation in Uruguay. The company further invested in an initiative that focuses on building a Bitcoin mining farm in El Salvador.
Additionally, Tether has made strategic investments in Northern Data Group, including a $420 million purchase of Nvidia GPU chips and a $610 million loan to fortify their joint venture.
The driving force behind Tether’s venture into Bitcoin mining, according to Ardoino, is decentralization.
Previously, Bitcoin mining activities were concentrated in China. After China’s regulatory crackdown, the industry largely shifted to the US. However, this still creates a single geographical point of concentration, a concern Tether aims to address through its investments.
The latest development comes ahead of the Bitcoin (BTC) halving event, which will slash mining rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.
One major concern associated with the event is miner profitability. Miners who use older, less efficient mining hardware are at risk of operational shutdown. This could lead to some consolidation within the mining industry and potentially impact the security and efficiency of the network.