Can actually Bitcoin be good for the environment?

[Thecryptocurrency09]

A lot has been said about mining and about the electricity consumption of the activities related to bitcoin mining. However, I have thought of the alternatives and how other systems produce not just energy waste, but also plenty of useless work and "human waste".

To have a network that can ensure the completeness of transactions, the global accessibility and all the features that bitcoins, and many alts, have at the moment, would probable produce a huge carbon footprint. Just think of the VISA system or the banking system... the amount of people working on it, the waste of commuting to works, the infrastructure.

Thinking of all that, would you still say Bitcoin is bad for the environment?

I believe that bitcoin is a goof investment. Although some may hate how it really goes but what's important is that we are all aware on how our bitcoin goes by. Besides, it is a personal choice to enter investments whether it is in bitcoin or not.

[Sadlife]

Bitcoin now a days is very difficult to mine due to its difficulty of its computating algorithm but this is actually not all bad because of this it reduces the risk of inflation this one of altcoins greatest problem. In time they will also increase in difficulty like btc.

[BlackRacerX]

A lot has been said about mining and about the electricity consumption of the activities related to bitcoin mining. However, I have thought of the alternatives and how other systems produce not just energy waste, but also plenty of useless work and "human waste".

To have a network that can ensure the completeness of transactions, the global accessibility and all the features that bitcoins, and many alts, have at the moment, would probable produce a huge carbon footprint. Just think of the VISA system or the banking system... the amount of people working on it, the waste of commuting to works, the infrastructure.

Thinking of all that, would you still say Bitcoin is bad for the environment?

You may have a point about the human waste bitcoins disposes but it does not out-weigh how much of an environmental impact does in mining a whole bitcoins from the sheer amount of electricty required to harvest such amount. Another thing to point out is that bitcoins can reduce the usage of paper or fiber required to make fiat money, that's for me, have a lot more environmental impact.

[KotiKo]

I would not say that bitcoin can harm our environment. Moreover, now mankind has come up with many alternative natural sources of energy-the use of wind, sun, etc., and this makes me happy

[KorakPawon]

I do agree. by its system and form, bitcoin can effectively save much more resources used by bank, etc. No paper money which is the main poin is paper. If only this one thing gone, when paper isn't produce, no energy will be used for it, automatically no electricity to be started to make the 'machine' on when creating paper, and so on, so fort. So, I hope many people can realize and thin about this system which is more economical.

[Andra Caroline]

Bitcoin can't exist without computers, which can't exist without a source of electricity. And the number of computers and the energy needed to power them is rising.The growing value of bitcoin is directly tied to the amount of energy it uses. let's face it. Bitcoin is kind of electricity-consuming.

[MORKEL]

The financial system was threatened 100 years ago by free clean wireless energy and they pulled all funding from Nikola Tesla and destroyed Wardenclyffe tower and everything associated with it. 100 years later the financial system is once again being seriously threatened by something else cryptocurrency and its using a energy problem its responsible for as its primary weapon against this threat. If bitcoin succeeds and frees people to truly be able to innovate without limitations it is highly likely that what we currently perceive to be a waste of energy will be a joke and the world could be a very different place.   

[randall_boss]

It's almost impossible that the existing banking system uses more electricity (per transaction) than Bitcoin does.

This I 100% agree with (and also the rest of that post too)

[Jomar Shafira]

Bitcoin likely uses close to four or five terawatt hours, less than the annual electricity consumption for Christmas lights in the U.S. I believe Bitcoin's benefits, such as making payments more efficient and helping people escape inflation, outweigh the environmental toll.

[Kenneth Marilyn]

Instead of worrying about how soon bitcoin will melt the polar ice caps, though, it’s worth considering how much energy might be saved. Bitcoin miners will consume an estimated 8.27 terawatt-hours per year. That might sound like a lot, but it’s actually less than an eighth of what U.S. data centers use, 1  and only about 0.21 percent of total U.S. consumption. It also compares favorably to the currencies and commodities that bitcoin could help replace: Global production of cash and coins consumes an estimated 11 terawatt-hours per year, while gold mining burns the equivalent of 132 terawatt-hours. And that doesn’t include armored trucks, bank vaults, security systems and such. So in the right context, bitcoin is positively green.

[Donna James]

It’s easy to criticize bitcoin for being wasteful. But so are many things in life, including airplanes, commuting to work and Sunday Night Football. A return to subsistence farming could drastically reduce our carbon footprint, but sometimes using energy to improve our quality of life is worthwhile.

[Steven Jurol]

The bitcoin network has the potential to generate a lot of benefits. How much is sound money worth? How about the ability to send money freely across borders, with no permission or central counterparty involved? Or to own an asset that can’t be seized? People in the U.S. and other developed countries might take these things for granted, but people in places like Zimbabwe and Venezuela are turning to bitcoin for survival. So perhaps all those computations aren’t wasteful: Maybe the miners are simply transforming the energy into something more valuable.