Sustainable development: are crypto-currencies becoming “eco-friendly”? Decrease in their ecological impact and an example of green cryptocurrency with Eco Coin
Le Bitcoin has often been criticized by environmentalists for its high cost of electricity. But in 2020, many solutions centered around virtual currencies now make it possible to associate Responsibility Law ecological and blockchain. Here is a quick overview of these new features.
Bitcoin: a high cost, but improving
We have known for several years, the project of high technology Bitcoin has a significant cost in electricity. To support its architecture, it thus consumes as much electricity as the whole of Switzerland. However, these figures should be put into perspective when compared to the banking system. At the highest, it is estimated that Bitcoin consumes around 57 terawatt hours (TWh) per year. Now the banking sector is much more greedy since consumes around 100 TWh per year, just to run its servers, local banks and ATMs. Added to this is the transport of funds by vehicle, plus the production of coins and notes, which is very expensive in energy. Bitcoin therefore consumes much less… But it is true that the service provided by Bitcoins is very far from that of the banking system! To get an idea of what 100 TWh per year represents, la production of a nuclear reactor civil power is, depending on its power, from 7 to 12 TWh per year.
In addition, experts have recently returned to these estimates. An American Chemical Society study by researchers at a university in Denmark indicates that the Bitcoin would only consume 31 TWh. It should also be noted that the majority of the pollution generated by Bitcoin is due to Chinese productions, which operate with coal power plants. But the development of sources ofsolar electricity on the territory should however mitigate that.
New “eco-friendly” technologies?
Most investors choose tobuy bitcoin, which remains the most popular and common digital currency. There are now also many alternative projects, which are based on different technologies. The verification system of the Ripple payment network, or that of the Tron, thus consumes little electricity. Ethereum, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, is also turning to this solution. By 2021, it will also have adopted these more “eco-friendly” technologies.
Projects entirely oriented towards ecology
And beyond these transformations, projects by fully ecological cryptocurrencies begin to emerge. This is the case of theEco Corner, which rewards its users when they carry out actions that help fight climate change. Or even Chia, a project that allows mining of digital currencies in an entirely ecological way.
The cryptocurrency industry is also committed to contributing to urgent ecological fights. In 2019, the crypto community had thus created a fundraiser to help fight the forest fires that ravaged the Amazon. And more recently, crypto donations have started to come together to bring aid to Australia, which is also plagued by flames. Justin Sun, who heads the Tron Foundation, also donated $ XNUMX million to the efforts of Greta Thunberg.
In this new decade which opens, the cryptos are gradually finding their place in ecology and they may well be key to the development of sustainable solutions in the future.