A new report finds its way in our crypto news conducted by Nature.com where scientists raised the alarm about the Bitcoin’s carbon footprint and that is worryingly impacting our planet.
According to the report, all of the existing data for Bitcoin’s electricity consumption is compared and calculated to see what the adoption of this cryptocurrency can bring us in the following years.
Last year a rough total of 315 billion cashless transactions were made and Bitcoin took only 0.033 percent of the done transactions. Scientist agree that such growth in the adoption of a new technology is normal but however, in a few years the percentage will get much higher and bitcoin is expected to dominate the total of cashless transactions which is why the eco-impact is so terrifying.
In less than 20 years, the emissions of Bitcoin usage could cross the 2C threshold. For its current carbon footprint, the report notes:
“60 percent of the economic return of the Bitcoin transaction verification process goes to electricity, at $0.05 per kWh and 0.7 kg of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) emitted per kWh, [resulting in an] estimate that Bitcoin usage emits 33.5 metric tons of CO2e annually, as of May 2018.”
The logic is, all of the miners will eventually want to migrate to areas that have low-cost power options but that is not an efficient-enough solution. Also, if energy costs remain higher, improved hardware could help reduce the footprint but this is a solution that is not actually built yet.
Not all scientists agree as well. Some believe that the mining process is the real problem we should all be focused on and improve the way energy is produced and generated.
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