Technology has always improved our lives, but of late, this has been tempered by the need to acknowledge our environmental impact, and people are becoming aware to keep the environment around them as healthy as they keep themselves and their families.
It has become very important to judge the upcoming technology on the basis of its sustainability towards the environment. Just like many technologies, Blockchain has the power to change our world for the better in so many ways. It can provide unbanked people with digital wallets, prevent fraud, and replace outdated systems with more efficient ones. But we still need this new and improved world to be one that we want to live in.
Recently, Blockchain used more power than 159 individual nations including Uruguay, Nigeria, and Ireland. Unsurprisingly, this is creating a huge environmental problem that poses a threat to the Paris climate-change accord.
Looking at this data we may think that we should stick to cash only. But cash has its own limitations and according to a study in the Netherlands cash payments generated 17,000 tonnes of CO2 or 0.01% of the total CO2 produced in the nation in 2015. The main contributors are the electricity to power ATMs and card readers, and transportation, usually by diesel vans.
In this race, Bitcoin would eventually win but there is one more race going between the cryptocurrencies in which the most eco-friendly one would win. There are numerous commercial services for powering crypto mining on server farms that only use clean, renewable energy. The best and easiest one is to use solar power plants for mining.
Among the largest cryptocurrencies, Ethereum is leading the race right now and geniuses like Elon Musk are also trying their best to come up with a more ecological solution for the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Stay tuned to this space for developments on this front.
