Bitcoin carbon footprint

[EasyEconomist]

As long as punitive taxation is applied to energy consumers/polluters , I would remind you that the mining activity of cryptos-actives (bitcoin, ether, lumen, monero... and 2,500 others) uses the equivalent of the electrical energy consumed every day by a country like Austria.

Except that one out of every two crypto units created was created via carbon energy, notably coal-fired electricity in China, Russia, Mongolia, the former Eastern European countries, etc.).

This represents a carbon footprint equivalent to that of vehicles circulating in France... except that the energy to produce 1 bitcoin did not allow anyone to heat anyone, nor to bring someone closer to his work, nor to temper a greenhouse to produce more food, etc.
What value creation behind cryptocurrencies?

In the absence of a central server (Bitcoin does not depend on a state or a central bank but is a decentralized currency), the global architecture is based on the principle of "peer to peer", like the "torrents" that allow Internet users to exchange music and videos on exchange platforms. Most of the servers, members of this global network, are located in China, which is a bit tricky when you consider that the Chinese central bank has demanded the closure of sites offering to acquire bitcoins from Chinese citizens. The Chinese datacenters that "mine" this cryptomonnaise alone consume nearly 6 TWh/year to do so. Far ahead of the United States, Russia, India, Japan, Germany, Canada, Brazil, South Korea and France (No. 10 in this ranking).

And if the cryptos fall back to zero (they have already lost 80% of their value, or $750 billion), their mining will have represented one of the most fantastic waste of energy in modern history. The only "objective" value associated with them is the energy cost of their extraction... Cryptos will not leave any material traces in the world heritage (because even an abandoned industrial wasteland is a testimony to our past, structural metal can be recycled, etc.).

Cryptos could have just increased the pollution of the planet without ever having been used for anything to protect it.

But taxing crypto-minors is impossible.... fortunately there is still the taxpayer!

[bitfocus]

did you just spinned a CoinTelegraph article and posted as your own and without any source link?

[NeuroticFish]

Cryptos could have just increased the pollution of the planet without ever having been used for anything to protect it.

But taxing crypto-minors is impossible.... fortunately there is still the taxpayer!

So you got some lines from some papers without citing and which were already demonstrated to be simply haters with truncated info to prove their point (did anybody take into the account the energy that should be wasted if it would not be used for mining? did anybody count the % of this energy coming from hydro, wind or solar sources? did anybody calculate the energy wasted by banks for functioning and advertising their business?), then you came to a ... strange conclusion.

The electricity used for mining (and/or the home/industrial devices for producing the electricity for mining) was paid for. That money, fiat money, should cover the pollution expenses like for any entity that buys / consumes electricity. So .. what you want to imply?

[aoluain]

Exactly, and what about physical mining activity around the world,
stripping away the earth, stripping away natural habitat, using vast
amounts of fuel and energy for metals and rocks. There are many
more wrongs being carried out why focus on crypto mining?

I would imagine if all this crypto was controlled by governments
and banks there would be nothing said about the cost of mining.

[baradfo]

Aside from the rewording/repost from an article that you did, if you are really interested in looking at the carbon footprint of mining what do you propose? Have you looked into how "green energy" can improve the mining carbon footprint? Have you looked into new ways of mining hardware configurations? The point of the article was to say that mining takes a lot of energy, your rewording spouts that mining takes a lot of energy without giving anything back. What's your solution if this is your way of thinking?

[btyco]

Miners are now switching to cleaner sources of energy to lower their production costs, also many altcoins are using pos instead which has a much lower carbon footprint

[dothebeats]

I think I have read this somewhere before

Anyway though, everybody starts to care for the environment when we talk about bitcoin, crypto and the machines that are being used to mint them but we don't bother to mention the amount of countries still lacking the initiative to switch to cleaner and greener energy source. We make numbers on bitcoin a huge deal but in other industries that harm the environment more, we set a blind eye to. Priorities and bigger money/payroll is what matters most, I guess, and most of these economists/environmentalists who condemn the cryptocurrency scene for the use of too much electricity are the ones who have other interests differing from what bitcoin and cryptos has.

Blame the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, I guess.

[towi078]

As far as I know, there are some environmentally friendly sources of electrical energy that you don't mention. And began to be widely used for mining cryptocurrency

[Msile]

That is a big problem that must be solved, thank goodness we are already in the process of creating better projects that do not base their way of working on the negative proof of work, I have heard of proof of community and proof of stake, are simply names for different types of reward systems and in one of those it is possible that there is the answer.

[Summation]

their mining will have represented one of the most fantastic waste of energy in modern history.

Then I can also think that casting coins/printed banknotes is most fantastic waste of energy in modern history. It not only wastes electricity, but also wastes paper and wastes time for printers.

[odolvlobo]

It is the generation of electricity that has a carbon footprint, not its consumption.