Climate activists from the group ‘Change the Code Not the Climate’ allege that there may be a way to reduce the carbon footprint of Bitcoin mining.
Currently the mining of the cryptocurrency is a practice that uses more energy year-in year-out than the entirety of Sweden.
Mining Bitcoin requires an extensive network of computers to add to the bitcoin ledger, something commonly known as a ‘proof of work’. This is something that rival cryptocurrency Ethereum has said it will change in its coding to cut its energy consumption by up to 99%. Bitcoin however has made no attempt to change its methods of mining since its inception at the start of the last decade.
Worldwide mining has begun to boom in countries with low energy costs such as Russia and Kazakhstan.
However, climate activists have expressed their concern over this carbon heavy practice and have begun seeking methods to reduce the amount of energy used to mine the currency. This could in turn make the currency cheaper to mine, with the effects on the price from such a phenomenon remaining unknown at present.
Do you think Bitcoin should reduce its carbon footprint?