How serious is the threat of Bitcoin mining to the environment?

As the United Nations embarks on the monumental task of restoring natural ecosystems, one can’t help but ponder the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining. The topic has spurred much consternation and debate lately as interest in blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin continue to expand throughout the world.

The theme of this year’s World Environment Day 2021 is “Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.” Today, June 5, will also mark the beginning of the U.N.’s “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.” According to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) — the world is now facing the triple threat of climate change, loss of nature and pollution, and UNEP has now launched a 10-year plan to restore at least one billion degraded hectares of land and natural ecosystems around the world — an area that adds up to about the size of China.

Bitcoin’s carbon footprint has become a growing concern for environmentally-conscious investors as well. In fact, the recent crypto market crash initially began in mid-May, when Elon Musk suddenly declared that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin as payment due to environmental concerns.

Bitcoin would continue to fall dropping 37.5% in May alone, hitting a low of US$34,195 making the month’s losses the second-largest single-month drop on record after it fell 40% in September 2011.

While no one doubts that blockchain is a powerful and transformative technology being used across an ever-growing range of sectors, its energy footprint as an industry has been deemed as unsustainable at the current pace.

Blockchains like Bitcoin work off of proof-of-work algorithms, which must be solved by computers through cryptographic calculations in order to mine the BTC tokens. The same is true of Ethereum in its current state.

The energy required by miners for these calculations result in high energy consumption. Recent research from the University of Cambridge’s recent bitcoin electricity consumption index showed that Bitcoin mining alone is utilizing around 0.6% of the global electricity consumption — this is more electricity than a country like Argentina uses in a year.

Source : forkas.news