Source: Thought Catalog – Unsplash
- Greenpeace slams Bitcoin for its high energy consumption rate.
- Bitcoin advocate, Michael Saylor, defends Bitcoin’s energy use.
After the success of the Ethereum Merge, nonprofit environmental protection firm, Greenpeace, has criticized Bitcoin over its high consumption rate. One of the reasons for the Ethereum Merge is to achieve a significant reduction in carbon emissions. According to Greenpeace, it has an ad budget of $1 million, which is geared towards the “change the code, not the climate” campaign.
The campaign will be sets of new online ads seeking a change to Bitcoin’s code and reducing its high energy consumption rate. Analysts have often reiterated that Bitcoin’s proof-of-work model is an intense, high-energy model. The director of the ad campaign, Michael Brune, said corporate executives and state and federal authorities are aiming to decarbonize as fast as possible to stop the massive rampaging fires and historic floods affecting the world.
Brune further said Ethereum has proven that switching to an energy-efficient protocol is possible. Thus, water, air, and the climate are less polluted. Brune added that the time has come for Bitcoin to accept its climate responsibility by switching to an efficient consensus mechanism like other crypto protocols have been doing for many years.
Greenpeace says the campaign also aims to attract the attention of famous Bitcoin advocates such as Jack Dorsey’s Block, Paypal and Fidelity investments. Thus, these Bitcoin advocates can make an effort to push for Bitcoin to become a more energy-efficient protocol.
Rober Altenburg, senior director at Pennfuture (a nonprofit firm focusing on clean energy economy and protection of land, air, and water in Pennsylvania), said the vulnerable communities close to crypto miners’ operations are paying the actual costs. They are suffering the public health and environmental damage caused by the air pollution these miners are creating.
He further said the worst case is that Bitcoin miners are using old, polluting coal plants for their operations since taxpayers’ money heavily subsidizes this energy source. The Merge, which took place on September 15, saw the switch of Ethereum (the second biggest crypto) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) Consensus. A CCRI report accredited by blockchain software firm, Consensys, states that the switch to a PoS model will cause Ethereum’s carbon emissions to reduce by approximately 99.99 percent.
Michael Saylor defends Bitcoin’s energy use
Meanwhile, vocal Bitcoin supporter, Michael Saylor, has claimed that Bitcoin’s energy use is the cleanest and most efficient industrial use of electricity. Saylor wrote a detailed blog post to explain his reasons. The founder of the business analytics company, Microstrategy, said that his firm’s analysis revealed that 59.5 percent of energy for Bitcoin mining is from sustainable sources.
He added that there had been a yearly 46 percent improvement in Bitcoin mining’s energy efficiency. Saylor also said there is no basis for comparing Bitcoin and proof-of-stake networks. According to him, Bitcoin mining (proof-of-work), when deployed fairly equitably, is the only proven way to create a digital commodity.
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