Bitcoin mining and the environment.

Almost 9,000 cryptocurrencies are live today in the world now, but hundreds of them are fake and are rarely bought or sold, and if you buy some of them, it will be almost impossible to sell them and get out of them. These currencies usually promote themselves at a very cheap price and are supported by individual accounts rather than being adopted by a community like Bitcoin. Bitcoin, the number 1 cryptocurrency in market capitalization, along with Ethereum, makes up 70% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. Compared to the stock markets where share prices change depending on the company’s performance in the market, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum depend mainly on their speculative community, their trust in the currency, the technology behind it, and their risk appetite. Verifications of blockchain transactions require great energy and powerful computing, which drains huge amounts of electricity. The amount of energy needed for mining varies depending on the currency and the blockchain technology the currency relies on. Greenhouse gasses caused by cryptocurrency mining are also considered main discussion issues for the sustainability of non-green cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin ranks among the worst cryptocurrencies with its negative environmental impact, followed by Ethereum. Annually 1% of global electric energy consumption goes to mining. This was one of the reasons why Tesla has given up accepting car orders with bitcoin, which in return plunged the Bitcoin value. Notably, the largest mining farms are located in China. Cryptocurrency mining is not the only thing that has its negative impact on the environment, but almost any ownership verification that requires massive processing in the blockchain does. NFT or Non-Fungible Tokens is also an intangible digital asset that can be owned or traded. It is estimated that the verification process for only one NFT ownership requires an amount of energy equivalent to the energy used by a traveling plane for an hour. There are green currencies in the cryptocurrency market that are clean and do not have a negative impact on the environment in their mining process, including “Chia”, “Cardano” and the promised Ethereum 2.0. “Cardano” is among the top 10 cryptocurrencies in terms of its market value and is also a green currency. It’s being developed after Bitcoin and Ethereum and it outperforms them in terms of technology, sustainability, and security. "Chia", another green cryptocurrency, does not use computing power and does not require additional electrical energy. It uses hard disk space for its mining or “farming”. This also received criticism due to the increase in the purchase demand for hard disks and thus the increase in electronic waste.

#green_bitcoin #cardano #chia #blockchain_enviroment #mining_enviromental_effect