A new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change finds that if Bitcoin is implemented at similar rates at which other technologies have been incorporated, it alone could produce enough emissions to raise global temperatures by 2°C as soon as 2033.
"Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency with heavy hardware requirements, and this obviously translates into large electricity demands," said Randi Rollins, a master's student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and coauthor of the paper.
Purchasing with bitcoins and several other cryptocurrencies, which are forms of currency that exist digitally through encryption, requires large amounts of electricity. Bitcoin purchases create transactions that are recorded and processed by a group of individuals referred to as miners. Miners group every Bitcoin transaction made during a specific timeframe into a block. Blocks are then added to the chain, which is the public ledger. The verification process by miners, who compete to decipher a computationally demanding proof-of-work in exchange for bitcoins, requires large amounts of electricity.
The electricity requirements of Bitcoin have created considerable difficulties, and extensive online discussion, about where to put the facilities or rings that compute the proof-of-work of Bitcoin. A somewhat less discussed issue is the environmental impacts of producing all that electricity.
A team of UH Manoa researchers analyzed information such as the power efficiency of computers used by Bitcoin mining, the geographic location of the miners who likely computed the Bitcoin, and the CO2 emissions of producing electricity in those countries. Based on the data, the researchers estimated that the use of bitcoins in the year 2017 emitted 69 million metric tons of CO2.
Researchers also studied how other technologies have been adopted by society, and created scenarios to estimate the cumulative emissions of Bitcoin should it grow at the rate that other technologies have been incorporated.
The team found that if Bitcoin is incorporated, even at the slowest rate at which other technologies have been incorporated, its cumulative emissions will be enough to warm the planet above 2°C in just 22 years. If incorporated at the average rate of other technologies, it is closer to 16 years.
"Currently, the emissions from transportation, housing and food are considered the main contributors to ongoing climate change. This research illustrates that Bitcoin should be added to this list," said Katie Taladay, a UH Manoa master's student and coauthor of the paper.
"We cannot predict the future of Bitcoin, but if implemented at a rate even close to the slowest pace at which other technologies have been incorporated, it will spell very bad news for climate change and the people and species impacted by it," said Camilo Mora, associate professor of Geography in the College of Social Sciences at UH Manoa and lead author of the study.
"With the ever-growing devastation created by hazardous climate conditions, humanity is coming to terms with the fact that climate change is as real and personal as it can be," added Mora. "Clearly, any further development of cryptocurrencies should critically aim to reduce electricity demand, if the potentially devastating consequences of 2°C of global warming are to be avoided."
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Q&A: What is bitcoin?
Old_C_Code
arcmetal
4johnny
Says who? You? What have you contributed to science?
4johnny
Who is "they"?
marcush
ThomasQuinn
googleplex
2) Compare the cost of mining its closest rival gold which is extremely capital intensive,or paper currency which also has significant production, logistical and security costs.
3) Mining represents a physical security barrier. The energy is used to solve a cryptogaphic math formula that secure transactions on a distributed public ledger called a blockchain. The more energy required to mine a bitcoin the harder it is to seize control of the mining to achieve 51% dominance. Compute for mining is well over 1000 x the total of the worlds top 500 super computers. To date bitcoins blockchain has never been hacked. It should be noted that mining initially ran on a single PC and its difficulty increased proportional to the increase in mining activity. Difficulty growth has been exponential.
BendBob
There have been others also. I think you may have trolled us expecting a big knee-jerk reaction, but it was a feeble attempt at "faking us out."
JamesG
Bart_A
zz5555
To be fair, we did have a guy at work who retired this year because he made ~$8 million off bitcoin. So some people have made money. It seems insane to me, though.
Cptn_Fantastic
Such a currency is as fraudulent as global warming- they share a similar stench...
blazh femur
At least other contributors to global warming are byproducts of actual work! Bitcoin is diabolical because it's destructive AND useless!
imperceptus
Or another example, how about educating our children not to play "diabolic" games which are burning a tons of fossil fuels, also every second, day and night.
I could add few more such examples. This article is obviously written by jealous person who wasn't smart enough at right point in time to figure out that Bitcoin will sky rocket in such a short time and make some people rich.
imperceptus
Anyhow Bitcoin is a fiat as any other currency having better features than older fiats controlled by banks. Bitcoin in controlled by many not by a few legal thief institutions. Banks are doing the same these days by implementing the same technology, because it is obviously better. How about we turn the banks off. That would save us from many other global problems not just global warming.
Da Schneib
Boogaboogabooga bitcoin's gonna eat the world. Get over it.
leetennant
postfuture
Cryptodiamond
I sure if you add them up the use will be greater than Bit Coin. This does have the ring of Hystria.