Is cryptocurrency bad for the environment?

[Bitcasino.io Support]

Hello everybody!

The world of digital assets stems from the act of crypto mining wherein ‘miners’ solve complex mathematical problems to add blocks of transactional information to the blockchain. They are rewarded with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as an incentive for maintaining the network. However, to do all this, miners consume significant amounts of energy that lead to environmental concerns.

As more people take interest in the world of cryptocurrency and how it works, the demand for crypto mining increases as well.
What type of impact does this have on the environment in terms of energy consumption? Let’s find out.

How does crypto mining work?

To understand the effect of cryptocurrency on the environment, you should first know how crypto mining works. Here’s a step by step guide on how the mining process works:

Step 1 - Verifying transactions using nodes

There are two ways to mine cryptocurrency: using your own hardware or software or through a cloud mining service. Miners first verify the transactions using nodes to make sure they are legitimate, then they move on to the next step.

Step 2- Creating a new block of data

The next step is when blocks are added to the blockchain. When the transactions have been verified, these are added into a block of data where they can no longer be altered or changed.

Step 3 - Additional information and hashes are added

Hashing or using mathematical processes takes place next. When the new blocks of data have been added, hashes and other information are included. To generate the hashes that will serve as each block’s ‘fingerprint’, miners verify or solve mathematical problems to complete the process.

Step 4 - Verification

Once the new hash is verified by all members of the network through a consensus, the block is then successfully added to the blockchain. The miner who was able to solve the problem first will then receive a set amount of cryptocurrency as a reward.

Why does crypto mining require so much energy?

The process of mining demands large energy consumption, reaching up to 120 Terawatt hours every year, which is equivalent to around 1% of the world’s energy consumption.

Experts have compared this level of energy consumption to the likes of small countries like Greece, Argentina and Chile who use fewer amounts of power annually. But why exactly does crypto mining require so much energy?

Cryptocurrency blockchains are public and decentralised so the upkeep of the entire network is left in the hands of its community that consists of computers all over the world. Part of this community are miners who play a huge role in ensuring that the network is secured and immutable. To do this, they use high-powered mining equipment that consumes a lot of energy.

The environmental impact of cryptocurrencies

With the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency, it’s important to understand the impact of crypto mining on the environment. One of the biggest effects it has on nature is carbon emissions. Due to crypto or bitcoin mining, the amount of carbon emissions on the planet has increased by 40 million tons just over the course of two years.

E-waste is also another result of crypto mining. As crypto becomes more in-demand, miners will have to upgrade their hardware to make the mining process more effective. Over time, the outdated machines are turned into e-waste that is considered useless and non-recyclable.

Overall, e-waste and carbon emissions both affect climate change. This means that they contribute to the breaking of the ozone layer that results in global warming and other environmental concerns.

The future between cryptocurrencies and the environment

The next step to take for most cryptocurrencies is to go with more sustainable options. If miners use renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, this could turn the situation around for the better.

The carbon footprint of crypto mining would decrease dramatically if it weren’t for the ‘proof of work’ process since it requires all miners in the network to solve cryptographic problems, which means expending a ton of energy.

In fact, there are now cryptocurrencies that don't require mining at all. Some of the more sustainable options like Cardano, Ethereum and Bitgreen use ‘proof of stake’ to validate their transactions. In the proof of stake process, only validators that have ‘staked’ their coins or have already processed transactions can verify transactions and be incentivised.

There are other steps being taken to mine cryptocurrency quickly and use less energy while doing so. For example, the government in El Salvador has recently adopted Bitcoin as their legal currency on June 9, 2021. These are mined using the energy from nearby active volcanoes to promote a more sustainable process.

When other digital assets follow in these footsteps, it will lead the world of crypto to a more eco-friendly future wherein cryptocurrencies and mother nature can co-exist peacefully.

Thanks for reading. If you have some thoughts, feel free to leave a comment.


Cheers,
Karl


Source: Bitcasino blog

[Sterbens]

So far, while there is a lot of speculation that cryptocurrencies are bad for the environment, but there is no evidence to show the damage caused by crypto mining. in fact it is not harmful, because if you compare the mining of gold then you need to reflect on the statement that mining crypto is much more effective and efficient, than mining gold, coal, natural gas, etc.

just because it uses a waste of electricity that requires high power? okay, let's see how much it costs Bitcoin mining and electricity costs? I think a lot of speculation is exaggerated so that those who are interested in mining Bitcoin think again.

[Lucius]

The process of mining demands large energy consumption, reaching up to 120 Terawatt hours every year, which is equivalent to around 1% of the world’s energy consumption.

Experts have compared this level of energy consumption to the likes of small countries like Greece, Argentina and Chile who use fewer amounts of power annually. But why exactly does crypto mining require so much energy?

You should have prepared better if you were already going to try to explain to someone how much energy Bitcoin mining actually consumes - so according to research by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance it is 110 Terawatt Hours per year - which is again about 0.55% of global electricity production.

Furthermore, it is twice less than what only one hydroelectric plant in China produces (Yunnan dams 250 TWH), of which as much as 95 TWH was wasted.
If you want the right information read it here - > Debunking the "Bitcoin is an environmental disaster" argument posted by @fillippone.

In fact, there are now cryptocurrencies that don't require mining at all. Some of the more sustainable options like Cardano, Ethereum and Bitgreen use ‘proof of stake’ to validate their transactions. In the proof of stake process, only validators that have ‘staked’ their coins or have already processed transactions can verify transactions and be incentivised.

Ethereum is POW, and the rest I won't even comment on, this is a board for Bitcoin Discussion.

There are other steps being taken to mine cryptocurrency quickly and use less energy while doing so. For example, the government in El Salvador has recently adopted Bitcoin as their legal currency on June 9, 2021. These are mined using the energy from nearby active volcanoes to promote a more sustainable process.

The biggest nonsense you wrote in this thread, - because it's about the possibility that the energy from the volcano may be used for mining (emphasis on maybe), and not that El Salvador is using some green Bitcoin that they produce themselves using volcanoes.

[fillippone]

The process of mining demands large energy consumption, reaching up to 120 Terawatt hours every year, which is equivalent to around 1% of the world’s energy consumption.

Experts have compared this level of energy consumption to the likes of small countries like Greece, Argentina and Chile who use fewer amounts of power annually. But why exactly does crypto mining require so much energy?

<...>
If you want the right information read it here - > Debunking the "Bitcoin is an environmental disaster" argument posted by @fillippone.

I just added on such a trhead a document by Bitcoin Mining Council (whom you may disagree with, but numbers are numbers), regarding the fact the China Ban heavily impacted mining industry.
Read it here:
Re: Debunking the "Bitcoin is an environmental disaster" argument.

[Dhoe]

there is no reason to say bitcoin is bad for the environment, only some people say bitcoin is bad for the environment, bitcoin has long been founded by satoshi nagatomo, why only now there are so many debates like that, if bitcoin really damages the environment why not prevent it in the first place..

[BrewMaster]

something important that is always overlooked when people talk about energy consumption and environment is that the amount of energy consumed is not important at all, WHAT that energy is being used FOR is important.

when we have a very useful decentralized currency that is working 24/7 for the whole world, then the amount of energy that it takes to secure this network is negligible no matter how much it is.
at the same time when we have thousands of useless altcoins (that is the cryptocurrencies) that have no purpose and are only pumped and dumped then even a single electron being spent for them is wasteful.

to answer the main question here, yes altcoins are bad for environment.

[cotton ball]

something that has developed is definitely a lot of people who are against it, when bitcoin first appeared and the price of bitcoin was still very cheap, no one banned bitcoin, no one said bitcoin was a scam, bitcoin is bad for the environment, I wonder why only now many comments negative about bitcoin, could this be a game of people who want to take a chance..

[ropyu1978]

Is crypto bad for the environment, my answer is definitely no, those who say crypto is bad for the environment, I believe people who say that, people who hate bitcoin, and governments who can't control bitcoin,

[BlackHatCoiner]

when we have a very useful decentralized currency that is working 24/7 for the whole world, then the amount of energy that it takes to secure this network is negligible no matter how much it is.

I'm beholding a completely unethical attitude or you've probably been poisoned by the over-enthusiastic thought that Bitcoin is that needed. The amount of energy it takes is not negligible. It may not consume much right now, but if you notice it, it increases analogously with the price. If we ever reach a time in the future when 1 BTC = $1M, mining will be much worse than before.

at the same time when we have thousands of useless altcoins (that is the cryptocurrencies) that have no purpose and are only pumped and dumped then even a single electron being spent for them is wasteful.

That is just your way of seeing this. There are people who find Bitcoin completely useless and thus, their opinion about mining will be justifiably against your statements. There are also people who believe in altcoins and they surely not find them useless.

[BitNoob21]

"People" in general are bad for the environment.  The more people who mine, the more electricity that has to be produced, and yes mining does take a lot of energy to mine, anyone can base it off the total power of XXX and YYY, but the only TRUE way to see how much it takes it for everyone to STOP mining completely and observe the change.  This will never happen so there is no real way to test it.

Many have mentioned for bitcoin to goto proof of stake as well.  I am not a crypto fanatic, wish I was and wish I hadn't lost accounts that I "tested" with back in the day, but oh well.  Obviously crypto is everywhere and when I wanted to get back in it, found out that "normal" individuals with "advanced" hardware really can't do it successfully.  I ran my three graphics cards recently 2070super for about a week and my electric bill was over $70 more and definitely didn't make that up...

Anyway back to a suggestion. 

I have been reading things here and there (definitely nowhere near a "noob" status yet, still a baby).  I see coins that went proof of stake/etc... so I have a suggestion..maybe someone with knowledge can tear it up so I could learn some more.

The point of decentralization is to have as many "nodes" as possible running to keep it decentralized. If everyone stopped hosting nodes, the whole system would crash (from my understanding)... so with that...why not make bitcoin mining all about decentralization/running nodes/verification.  Ehereum setting it at 32 is crazy for people, to mee it should be incentivized to run a full node...

1) lower the Proof of Work to a simple calculation that allows a basic CPU to do the work (no more advanced fpga/graphics cards/etc)...(lowering the electricity draw/electronic waste SIGNIFICANTLY)
2) not sure how, but I'm sure a list of all nodes is somehow on the network, but iterate through the node addresses and use something like 60% of them to send the "WORK" to.  The Node on top of the list gets the "coins" for the original work, the rest validated that it was correct, the next 60% is iterated down one by one with that 60% so that everyone does the work/validation/has a chance to get the coins the longer the node stays active.

Example

Transaction 1

List of Nodes
Node1
Node2
Node3
Node........1,000,000


So it starts at Node1 and grabs the next 600,000 nodes (60% of the current 1,000,000).  Node1 Does the simple PoW, Node2-600,000 does the same work, and validates that Node1 is correct/adds to network, node1 gets coins!!!! YAY thanks Node1 for helping keep Bitcoin Decentralized....

Transaction 2
Node2 through Node 600,001 get sent the work, Node 2 does the simple calculation, Node3-600,0001 validates its correct/adds to network/node 2 gets the coins!!!!.... and it just repeats....

The key is that they must be running a full node.  The node list will be based off an IP address so its not like running 10,000 nodes on a single IP will benefit anyone. 

______
Something else to think about is the "private key lottery".... if bitcoin can keep a blockchain on transactions, why can't it keep a blockchain of "password hashes" that are part of the validation process in order to complete the transaction process.....

public key address: bcrypt/scrypt/etc or some long hashing function that incorporates the private key/users made up password

This way, as technology evolves, its not just how fast can you go through the range 2^1-2^255, its can you provide the additional potential of the unknown.

____

anyway... food for thought

[NotFuzzyWarm]

1) lower the Proof of Work to a simple calculation that allows a basic CPU to do the work (no more advanced fpga/graphics cards/etc)...(lowering the electricity draw/electronic waste SIGNIFICANTLY)

Only 1 problem with that -- considering that miners get paid for processing blocks, changing the algo to make it 'CPU friendly' would mean that gazillions more miners would be cheaply brought online and difficulty would still skyrocket as a way to keep to the existing rewards schedule. If the algo is changed to keep diff low the network could easily be swamped with miners vying to get the finder reward or more likely and worse yet, bad actors easily DOSing the pools/nodes or applying 51% attacks..

The existing POW format prevents all of that by making it exceeding difficult & expensive to attack the network..

[avikz]

With the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency, it’s important to understand the impact of crypto mining on the environment. One of the biggest effects it has on nature is carbon emissions. Due to crypto or bitcoin mining, the amount of carbon emissions on the planet has increased by 40 million tons just over the course of two years.

As per the 2016 data of carbon emissions worldwide, the total value of carbon emission was 35753 million tons. I am sure it has increased in recent years but I am unable to find most current data from a reliable source.

So 40 million tons of emission accounted for roughly 0.11% of the global carbon emission. Organized industries emit way more carbon than bitcoin mining. So I think we should put this argument to rest until bitcoin mining accounts for at least 1% of global carbon emission.

[BlackHatCoiner]

The point of decentralization is to have as many "nodes" as possible running to keep it decentralized.

I think that this isn't the case for decentralization. A better formulation would be: The point of decentralization is to keep the hashrate distributed. It doesn't really matter if the network has 100,000 or 100 nodes. The ones who broadcast the blocks are the ones we want distributed (and obviously many).

to mee it should be incentivized to run a full node...

It already incentives you to run a full node. You gain privacy and a strong proof of verification of the events witnessed since 2009.

[Ucy]

In fact, there are now cryptocurrencies that don't require mining at all. Some of the more sustainable options like Cardano, Ethereum and Bitgreen use ‘proof of stake’ to validate their transactions. In the proof of stake process, only validators that have ‘staked’ their coins or have already processed transactions can verify transactions and be incentivised.

There are other steps being taken to mine cryptocurrency quickly and use less energy while doing so. For example, the government in El Salvador has recently adopted Bitcoin as their legal currency on June 9, 2021. These are mined using the energy from nearby active volcanoes to promote a more sustainable process.

When other digital assets follow in these footsteps, it will lead the world of crypto to a more eco-friendly future wherein cryptocurrencies and mother nature can co-exist peacefully.

Thanks for reading. If you have some thoughts, feel free to leave a comment.


Cheers,
Karl


Source: Bitcasino blog

Well, the typical pos is definitely not a good alternative to PoW because it encourages centralization and typically requires huge amount of money from participants to have a full say on a network. Such "consensus mechanism" actually violate Satoshi Bitcoin or Blockchain principles/standards in many ways.
What we need is efficient PoW... Besides, most/all consensus mechanism are actually PoW disguised as so called or meaningless pos.
They should probably ask participants to stake other things like reputation and/or ID if they really mean well... At least most/all participants can afford that. It mustn't be money, unaffordable amount for that matter.

Proof of Work will be hard to replace in my opinion. It's the real consensus mechanism. Others sound like things coined by children.

[Renampun]

No, cryptocurrency is absolutely not bad to the environment. And there is no reason to think otherwise.

do you mean cryptocurrency between bad for the environment and not...

https://www.dw.com/en/five-of-the-worlds-biggest-environmental-problems/a-35915705

The human activity itself is the cause of environmental damage. Bitcoin mining causes environmental damage is an old FUD that we must forget.

[Shenzou]

You have to take in consideration that crypto mining is a decentralized, and not every miner is using the same energy and he or she is using clean or carbon dioxide emitting energy, so collectively sure you can count that the energy consumption is equal to 1%  of the world and make a big deal out of it, and say that it causes environmental problems, but i can think of far more unnecessary systems and things that uses more energy and causes more harm to the environment in the process, do we need to think about alternatives ?, sure, but i personally think that this whole thing is just a way to spread negativity about crypto.

[aoluain]

To answer the thread title, Yes!

Everything we do is bad for the environment, we have upset the equilibrium.

Why are so many people obsessed with Bitcoins energy consumption? Has anyone
voiced concerns about  how much energy is consumed by minting FIAT coins, printing
paper notes and the distribution and storage? no

There are other steps being taken to mine cryptocurrency quickly and use less energy while doing so. For example, the government in El Salvador has recently adopted Bitcoin as their legal currency on June 9, 2021. These are mined using the energy from nearby active volcanoes to promote a more sustainable process.

El Salvador are not mining Bitcoin yet, they plan to offer energy as affordable as possible
to attract mining activity. Green renewable energy will be produced  from Geothermal activity
linked to a Volcano.


Here is a thread in the press secrion of the forum posted by @acquafredda which counters
any negativity around energy consumption

2021-07-02 CNBC - Bitcoin mining consumed 56% green energy in June quarter

[cr1776]

Yawn.  The FUD and nonsense that gets bandied around and repeated is nauseating. 

The answer to the thread is: no.

Some questions should be answered before one can ask that question:
1. Is the environment constantly changing?
2. What are the optimal environment conditions for earth?  For humans?  For other life?
3. What is the cost of the tradeoffs involved?  e.g. between fiat's total environmental impact; between the people who are using fiat to steal from everyone every year etc.

Just an open ended question like the title is worthless unless the goal is to spam with nonsense to help advertise your casino.

[DeathAngel]

It’s all FUD by people who work for governments or organisations that are scared of bitcoin making them obsolete.
They did it in the 90’s about the internet & about electricity in the 1900’s. It’s a load of rubbish. Think how much energy the world banking industry uses or how much energy is used in war. It’s pathetic, just buy bitcoin & ignore it.

[pinggoki]

Anything that involves the burning of fossil fuels and the pollution of the air is bad for the environment. And cryptocurrrencies aren't the prime offenders in this as far as I know. We have corporations to blame for not giving renewable resources a chance to shine because oil and non-renewable resources rake in much bigger stacks of money for them than the healthier and much more environmental-friendly variants. This is bound to change in the future however as more and more people are enticed to take in cheaper and renewable alternatives, which these companies will be forced to adopt or adapt into.