This cryptocurrency currently accounts for around 41 percent of the global market share in cryptocurrencies.
American researchers say that the impact of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency on the climate is worse than raising beef, and the situation is getting worse every day. It causes the same damage to the atmosphere as crude oil, writes Science Alert.
This was revealed in a new tripartite review. They show that bitcoin is potentially unsustainable and could have catastrophic social and environmental consequences in the future.
Specifically, from 2016 to 2021, the CO2 equivalent of bitcoin’s greenhouse gas emissions increased from less than one ton (metric ton) per coin to 113 tons per coin.
Each bitcoin mined in 2021 caused $11,315 in climate damage, totaling $3.7 billion. And this is just for this year.
Its climate damage averages 35 percent of its market value. And the climate damage from bitcoin per dollar is slightly less than natural gas (46 cents per dollar value) and gasoline from crude oil (41 cents per dollar value).
“Taken together, the results represent a set of red flags for any consideration as a sustainable sector (investment or otherwise). Although advocates routinely suggest it as a type of digital which is gold in terms of climate damage, it’s more like digital oil,” Benjamin Jones, an environmental economist at the University of New Mexico, and his colleagues noted.
Bitcoin mining itself relies on exponential growth in computing power, which in turn requires exponentially more electricity. If the computational effort needed to mine blockchains is provided by renewable energy sources, the system can become more resilient. But today, estimates show that more than 60 percent of power plants run on fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.
“In the absence of such changes, it may be time to abandon the conventional approach and consider collective action, such as tightening regulation,” Jones and colleagues wrote.
Recall that last year Tesla suspended the sale of electric cars for Bitcoin. The reason is the environmental damage from cryptocurrency mining and operations.
The price of Bitcoin has exceeded 25 thousand dollars
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Source: korrespondent
