Crypto 2- Mining and Sustainability

So, you may have read our previous article on crypto and you’re pumped! You are ready to invest and draw up strategies on how your company can be a part of this technological innovation path. That’s great! However, there is another hot topic for many corporate businesses, and it doesn’t mix as well with Bitcoin, Blockchain, Web 3.0, and other ambitious technologies. Enter: Sustainability.  

Bad or not? 

These innovations in the technology space are not the most environmentally friendly. To the point where there are some scary statistics of whole countries worth of energy needed to run these technologies. We need to be careful to not dive into these seemly attractive headlines like this one from the New York Times. “single bitcoin transaction now requires more than 2,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity or enough energy to power the average American household for 73 days”. As pointed out in a Forbes article that articulates Bitcoin vs the Environment, it makes the point that while these aren’t necessarily untrue, it depicts the idea that going forward is only going to get worse. Where the reality of the opportunity lies around the scale. If scaled correctly bitcoin could consume considerably less energy. The headline from New York Times rings true due to the number of people currently trading in bitcoin and the capital that carries per transaction. However, that doesn’t escape the fact that right now, there are tons of energy being used at the moment on bitcoin, that our planet doesn’t have the capacity to carry for the long future. 

Big China Moves 

Some big players in China are making their way to more democratized energy locations for technology. For example, some locations are preferred due to the lack of dust or temperature. Others are chosen from the ability to compete in the energy market and use cheaper energy such as Canada, Iceland, Russia, and Texas. Miners are moving in! 

The Future is Always Bright 

So, is Bitcoin sustainable? No, but the future is bright as tech companies are fighting it out to find more energy-efficient ways for it to work, particularly as its lack of environmental impact is a massive black mark against it. However, as pointed out multiple times across articles, it’s too hard to tell. How do you measure it and what is against it? What are we quantifying or deeming as the fixed point for measuring success? For this reason, I will leave you with a blog that lists the top environmental coins for you to gander through. Thanks leafscore.  

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