A study published in the scientific journal Nature shows that Bitcoin, which prides itself on being a solution to many, is above all destroying the planet at high speed.
Contrary to a study that claimed that Bitcoin Lightning would be 194 million times less energy-intensive than centralized finance, aA study published last week in the journal Nature only confirms, with supporting figures, what we already assumed: the most famous cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is a real ecological disaster and is only getting worse. climate change. In question, its operation based on Proof-of-Work, whose electricity consumption increases exponentially. In 2020, Bitcoin mining used more energy than the total consumption of countries such as Portugal and Austria.
According to the study, between 2016 and 2021, the emissions generated to mine a bitcoin increased from one to 113 tons per year ! No other industry in the world can boast of destroying the environment at such speed. Bitcoin is doing more and more damage, and faster and faster, so much so that it will soon pollute more than the oil industry. According to the scientists’ calculations, crypto mining has in any case already surpassed livestock farming in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Admittedly, the effects of this pollution could be offset by the use of renewable energies, but the figures show that cryptos consume fossil fuels 60% of the time.
Bitcoin mining consumes more electricity in a year than all of Portugal
The professors of the Economics Department of the University of New Mexico chain shock statistics: the share of the environmental cost of a Bitcoin is 35%. Which means that for every euro created by bitcoin, 35 cents correspond to environmental damage. According to them, the damage caused by Bitcoin in 2021 cost the equivalent of $3.7 billion. The researchers state that “all these elements taken together are a sign that Bitcoin cannot be considered a sustainable sector. His supporters present him as digital gold, while he works more like digital oil”.
A partial solution to the announced disaster already exists: Proof-of-stake, a technique that modifies the functioning of the blockchain. Ethereum, the other best-known cryptocurrency, has already adopted it: it is now much less energy-intensive. For Bitcoin miners, saving the environment unfortunately weighs nothing against the greed. If Bitcoin adopted proof-of-stake technology, millions of miners would have to sell their now useless graphics cards on the second-hand market. They intend to make their investment profitable, at all costs.
Source: Nature