“Green Cryptocurrencies” - they way forward?

[EriksonPartners]

Though currently struggling for survival, if we’re talking about the future, could cryptocurrencies have a potential to trigger an eco friendly finance revolution?

[avikz]

Though currently struggling for survival

That's your personal thinking. Cryptos are not struggling for survival in any way. Adoptions are increasing day by day! More businesses are opening around cryptos - these are the signs of prosperity, not survival!

If we’re talking about the future, could cryptocurrencies have a potential to trigger an eco friendly finance revolution?

As per the current model of crypto mining, it looks hard to happen! However, if the entire economy moves to cryptos and fiat becomes irrelevant, probably mankind will be spending quite less than what they are spending now on minting money! However, the chance of happening it, is pretty slim!

[Harlot]

If you think about the most resource depleting ways of making money then you can count out cryptocurrencies and mining. Unlike how businesses burn through a lot of oil, energy, and other resources to produce their product cryptocurrencies only needs to consume energy in order for you to earn which I think is a better way to earn as what you will be earning will always depend on when you sell it, cryptos unlike products of businesses are not set in a fixed price they are always moving and you can take advantage of it and earn more from it which will justify your electricity consumption.

[Rooney67]

Okay, maybe cryptocurrencies don't need any source like gold, oil etc. to define their value, but still there's a problem how they are being mined. Graphic cards consume a LOT of energy, so as far as we don't find another, more "green" way to mine - imo we can't say that cryptocurrencies are all green and eco friendly.

[Teawhalee]

To say that it’s struggkijg for survival means it ha slostbits value and fading out which is definelty not true. We all have different thinking though but if you are following bitcoin you will see there has been some development and adoption as many are trying to get involved in it. The revolution has started but it won’t be sudden. Let’s just follow the process and wait for the result.

[franky1]

cryptocurrencies that use PoW have an underlying base value which is the cost of creation. no one is foolish to sell below the cost they used to make it. thus Pow has some advantage in that

as for how to make it eco-friendly.. well its already being done
1. if we still used GPU's it would take THOUSANDS of GPU/PSU's to get a terrahash of hashpower, and yet an ASIC is thousands of times more eco friendly
2. ASIC farms are moving away from coal/gas powerplants and moving to use renewable sourced powerplants.

however there could be new cryptocurrencies in the future where the creation of the units of measure(tokens/coin) have no impact on the ecology of the planet, but do have some financial backing/cost/requirement in its creation

[cryptovigi]

...
As per the current model of crypto mining, it looks hard to happen! However, if the entire economy moves to cryptos and fiat becomes irrelevant, probably mankind will be spending quite less than what they are spending now on minting money! However, the chance of happening it, is pretty slim!

In fact - currently the most popular crypto system based on PoW mining can not be called as eco-friendly. Various sources say that the energy used for currency mining exceeds the total energy demand of several countries. For example, the production of bictoin takes more electricity than the demand of for example, Romania, and similar to Israel or Greece.

surce: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption


Fortunately, new cryptocurrencies change algorithms and instead of the most popular PoW, they start using other solutions like PoS, which causes that the demand for energy consumption is definitely lower - and this can transfer cryptocurrencies to an environmentally friendly path.

[franky1]

that energy consumption index is wrong on so many levels

hers some logic
lets use the high of 50exahash
thats
=3,571,428~ 14thash asics which use 1.3khw
=4642857~ kwh
=4642.9 mhw = 4.6gwh
=40671gw per year = 40tw per year PEAK

we all seen that there have been more efficient asics in the last 6 months. so the number would be lower than 40tw/year
we all seen that there has been hashrates of under 40exa in the last 6 months. so the number would be lower than 40tw/year

the 'energy consumption index is using very outdated ASIC tech stats and not even calculating the asic stats vs real hashrates to get a true 'energy consumption index'

from june 2018-december2018 there is no way was the bitcoin network at 75tw

[XinXan]

Whatever, there are far worse things fucking up the world than cryptos. No one cares about it really, all the politicians that talk about climate change and all that shit do it to get votes, don't get confused.

[franky1]

Whatever, there are far worse things fucking up the world than cryptos. No one cares about it really, all the politicians that talk about climate change and all that shit do it to get votes, don't get confused.

very true
fun facts
pepsi-co waste more on electric to keep their bottles refrigerated than bitcoin uses. and that refrigeration cost does not protect bottles for eternity/immutably. it just keeps them cool for a short period before it ends up as human urine

fun facts
the funds raised by 'carbon tax' dont go towards planting new tree's in rainforsts. its actually wasted on corporations that develop land into new real estate by them buying up cheap land near waterways and then getting eco-grants to raise the ground level to reduce risk of flooding to their own private property.
(also yes some of the carbon tax ended up paying for some of them man made islands in the middle east)

[xvids]

Though currently struggling for survival, if we’re talking about the future, could cryptocurrencies have a potential to trigger an eco friendly finance revolution?

To be honest everything right now is harmful for the earth.
Every company plays a huge part of it.
And so as we the consumers the cars or motorcycle that we drive ,
The instanr food and drinks that we consume, Not to mention the cigarette that we smoke.

[mohammedmattar]

Though currently struggling for survival, if we’re talking about the future, could cryptocurrencies have a potential to trigger an eco friendly finance revolution?

How do you find out that crypto is struggling to survive?
the crypto is gaining supporters continuously and adoption is increasing

Regarding alternative energy
There are numerous and reliable projects developed solutions to energy problems as a whole and mining in particular ,will come into force soon.

[thecodebear]

A few points.


Whenever I see articles on the energy waste of bitcoin people always fail to account for the fact that dense regions of bitcoin mining often congregate around cheap hydro electric power. Lots of chinese mining operations run off hyrdo electric power because it is so cheap. Same for the state of Washington, lots of people have flooded to Washington state for mining specifically in order to use their cheap renewable hydro electric power.
Certainly a lot of the mining power is not from renewables, but the pollution from bitcoin mining I think is always way overstated because the media never takes renewable powered mining operations into account.

I certainly would like crypto to be "green", though Bitcoin will never change from proof-of-work. It would be too drastic of a change for the mining community to switch to another protocol of securing the blockchain. A change from PoW would put bitcoin at grave risk and that will just never be worth it. The way to make bitcoin green, or greener that it currently is, is to move the world quicker to renewables.

I would totally support other cryptos using more eco-friendly protocols. There are plenty of other niches that cryptocurrencies can occupy other than bitcoin's global money and global store of value niche. Ethereum moving to Proof of Stake is an example.

[betty11]

Something that has survive doesn't struggle for survival. It seems you have been away and not following the technological development but the price fluctuation. Forget the prices and look at the technological development of cryptocurrency. So You don't know the big banks are thinking of creating their own coins? Digital money is the way to go.

[Ailmand]

Though currently struggling for survival, if we’re talking about the future, could cryptocurrencies have a potential to trigger an eco friendly finance revolution?

Well, cryprocurrency had been up and down since it was created. We are actually way to far feom massive adaptation and the way it looks people, bussinesses, and the government is taking littlw steps looking into crypto on how will it be benificial and how to adapt it to be able to cope-up with the advancement of technology.

[Kakmakr]

Bitcoin are already the environmental friendly substitute for the energy hungry Banking sector and the pollution friendly reserve currencies. When you start looking at all the energy that are used to drive the Banking sector, you will understand why I am saying that it is not good for the environment. <Example : Energy used for 1000s of ATMs / Bank buildings with air-conditioning and computers etc.>

Reserve currencies needs raw minerals like Nickel / Iron / Bronze and Paper & Plastic to create Fiat currencies and that is even worst for the environment when this is mined. <collected> 

[Herbert2020]

it is only altcoins that are struggling hard these days because most of them are still in bubbles and are overpriced so they need to get dumped more before they can become healthy again. and on top of that they are useless so they always struggle at surviving because hypes don't last long.

as for "greenness" you have to know that the cryptocurrencies are the consumers not the producers so they can not decide where the energy comes from, they may create incentive for more green energy production but they can not enforce it as consumers.

[Bossian]

One thing people just cannot argue against: Bitcoin is absolutely terrible for the environment. I say this as a Bitcoin holder, but it's always better not to be in total denial about the obvious.

[sidhujag]

there is nothing cheaper than PoW, period. PoS is more expensive in game theoretical contexts.

[Indrawan77]

Bitcoin is far from struggling, the adoption and the growth progress got a really positive sign and bitcoin has become bigger and bigger, but eco friendly is not going to happen, the mining itself consume a huge amount of electricity and the usage of bitcoin is going to increase the electricity usage because it need Internet and gadget