Is block chain bad for the environment?

[kapustinal]

I read that a lot of electricity is consumed in mining bitcoins. Is block chain bad for the environment?

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[Alexander_Z]

That's a complicated question. Currently the energy consumption by bitcoin mining is huge - it was said that in November 2017, the power consumed by the entire bitcoin network was higher than that of Ireland. However, simple extrapolations predicting that the consumption is going to rise to even more ridiculous levels are almost certainly wrong. Bitcoin mining difficulty automatically adapts to the available computational (hashing) power and mining rewards are constant in the short term and will be reduced in the future. With the introduction of more energy effective (but probably more expensive) miners the energy consumption may remain stable or even become lower. Other, cheaper, coins with their blockchains consume a tiny fraction of the bitcoin's consumption, but are no less secure.

[airtman]

Since it consumes such power it may be causing power shortage for the environment which maybe of harm to the environment

[Payapa]

You basically need powerful rigs to be able to mine with the most. In an environment's perspective, you are, since mining normally runs all day. Little by little you're contributing to the bad effects on the environment, and waste energy is surely high.

[cryptocurrencybazaar]

In a way, YES.

Mining of Bitcoins is consuming lot of electricity. As the number of miners are increasing the difficulty level of mining is also increasing. So, it requires much more power to mine Bitcoin and it will keep increasing.

[LtMotioN]

If we are going to measure bitcoin by its worldwide power use then we should also ask how much power all the ATMs, pin pads,servers, routers, switches and all that of the banks use.

I can assure you that all banks have absolutely massive datacenters. I have been inside quite a few of these, they make bitcoin mining farms look tiny.
I reckon that their power usage is right up there as well.  We should consider the entire banking systems ecosystem if we want to make this claim against BTC.

POS coins are getting popular too these days, if you want to be green in this space you can always go for one of those if you want.

I think this study that stated more than Ireland probably measured all cryptocurrencies as "bitcoin". We should also look into how they actually measured it, there are so many lies being spread around BTC by the media that we must always question everything they say.

That said, I wouldn't  say it is good for the environment but the power cost of mining bitcoin is encouraging miners to go over to renewable energy such as solar. I think it might just push a lot of cities and people over the ledge to go over to renewable energy. In some countries you can really generate a ton of electricity by solar.

[jseverson]

No.

Blockchain =/= Bitcoin. Blockchain is a technology, and Bitcoin is just one of its many applications.

The Bitcoin network consumes a lot of energy, but it shouldn't have to be singled out because it's far from the only offender. Either way, it's only bad if miners only use lots of unclean energy, and there's no data on that.

[vbcrypto]

Blockchain is new for us, mining consumes much electricity. But its a new technology, it will develop in future. I can compare it with internet, initially internet was slow, but over the years you can see a result. So i believe in blockchain and it will change our future.

[jrtm]

I do not think so as the technology is very safe and secure but it consumes more power that is the only problem with Block chain.

[bright4mech]

Yes is bad  and dangerous in environment, because it use high electric power required on a process, with an adequate secured around the compound on block chain community working effectively for a future used. 

[AdolfinWolf]

Yes, block chain is bad for environment because this is take very high electricity and so many country not make hi electric. so this is not good for environments and people.

Not blockchain. Bitcoin.

You can operate a blockchain without any mining power needed if you would want to. It's simply a ledger that isn't distributed by a central system, but rather peer 2 peer. Look at ripple ( bad example.) et al. They don't need hashing power.

I would however conclude that the bitcoin mining process is pretty wasteful. With most miners located in china (where clean energy is a word they don't know.)


This is from 2012



That's not going to be good for the environment.

[MintDice]

Blockchain, no. Cryptocurrency mining in general can be bad for the environment, yes, as it requires electricity-sometimes in large amounts. The key is that many mining operations aren't using 'clean' energy therefore only making this worse. Fortunately, the push for environmentally-friendly mining/farming operations is growing. If the focus shifts to using clean energy or utilizing more energy saving methods for mining, e.g. solar energy or proofs of space and time (check out the company, Chia http://bit.ly/chia-ecofriendly) then we could see vast improvements on this front.

[HeRetiK]

I read that a lot of electricity is consumed in mining bitcoins. Is block chain bad for the environment?

A lot of human resources is consumed by banking and finance. Cryptocurrencies could free up much of what is basically a waste of workforce.

You can operate a blockchain without any mining power needed if you would want to. It's simply a ledger that isn't distributed by a central system, but rather peer 2 peer. Look at ripple et al. They don't need hashing power.

Ripple is centrally issued and requires a network of trust. Ripple and the likes of it fail at providing some of the core value propositions made by cryptocurrencies, namely being permissionless, trustless and decentralized.

I would however conclude that the bitcoin mining process is pretty wasteful. With most miners located in china (where clean energy is a word they don't know.)

You might want to rethink your conception of China:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/10/china-on-track-to-lead-in-renewables-as-us-retreats-report-says