Greenpeace USA – an environmental advocacy group – calls Bitcoin to have what they call an “outdated and ineffective” crypto system.
In a tweet Thursday, the organization doubled down on claims that Bitcoin’s Proof of Work mechanism is contributing to the climate crisis. Instead, I suggested replacing the code with a less power-intensive proof-of-stake mechanism.
Campaigns against mining
group of influence formulations It was a reaction to last Thursday’s successful Ethereum merger – an event that transformed the protocol from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
“Ethereum has just proven that cryptocurrency does not have to come at the expense of a habitable planet,” the nonprofit said. At the same time, Bitcoin has been criticized for continuing to consume more electricity than “entire countries.”
Bitcoin energy consumption can fluctuate as market conditions change, but it has generally risen over time as the Bitcoin mining industry expands. According to Cambridge Bitcoin electricity consumption indexCurrently, the theoretical maximum consumption is about 159.63 TWh. For comparison, the entire country of Norway consumes about 124 TWh, according to data from Forbes last year.
Its energy footprint is based on Proof of Work – a mechanism for achieving blockchain compatibility and security through energy consumption. Specifically, users (miners) are consuming energy in a race to build the next bitcoin block, with BTC winners rewarded. Of course, as the price of bitcoin increases over time, they are motivated to burn more energy to earn additional rewards.
As Greenpeace explained, this process encourages miners to bring old coal and gas plants back to life, thus “fueling the climate crisis.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” the nonprofit argued. “Ethereum – one of the main competitors to Bitcoin – just changed its coding system to reduce its energy use by 99.95%.”
The last time Greenpeace targeted bitcoin was in March, following Ripple founder Chris Larsen is funded $5 Million Campaign to See Convert Bitcoin to Proof of Stake. Just like last time, Greenpeace has also invited Bitcoin-related tech billionaires – including Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk – to spread awareness about their energy footprint.
argument to prove work
However, bitcoin is not retreating. Dorsey, for example, explained his dislike of the evidence on the effort logs afterwards to share A blog post celebrating the excellence of Proof of Work on Wednesday.
Dorsey also co-signed a letter of authorization to the Environmental Protection Agency in May, which Criticize Evidence of effort to be susceptible to centralization.
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has also stopped striking in his defense of bitcoin mining.
“[Bitcoin’s carbon emissions] said in a Mail Wednesday.
It’s also a question of how much global emissions would fall if the transition really took place. Bitcoin is estimated to be responsible for about 0.08% of global emissions at the moment, which may be the limit for its emissions.
In addition, the merger showed that not all miners will not go out of business after this upgrade. Instead, it seems that many have He immigrated To prove other working chains, such as Ethereum Classic.
Bitcoin Post Fuels Climate Crisis: Greenpeace USA first appeared on CryptoPotato.