As cryptocurrencies look to revolutionize the financial market, there is a cost that comes from the sheer amount of energy required to mine them.
New research from Forex Suggest reveals the cryptocurrencies with the highest CO2 emissions, with Bitcoin alone generating 56.8m co2 emissions in 2021
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The Most-Polluting Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin is by far the most energy-consuming cryptocurrency, using 707 kWh per transaction which results in 1,060.5 lbs of CO2 for every transaction (just over half a ton.)
Ethereum uses the second most energy for each transaction: 62.56 kWh, which produces 93.84 lbs of CO2.
In third place is Bitcoin Cash, a derivative of Bitcoin. This cryptocurrency uses 19.957 kWh per transaction and produces 28 lbs of CO2.
Cryptocurrencies That Are Increasing Their Emissions The Fastest
Bitcoin Cash increased its emissions the most from 2020 to 2021 - an increase of a staggering748%! The cryptocurrency is on track to release 1,303,278 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere this year.
Cardano uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain which requires much less energy and processing power than the Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain used by the market leaders. Nonetheless, for the time being, the currency is still seeing a 551% increase in its emissions rate.
The technology used by Stellar is more efficient than PoW or PoS. As a consequence, Stellar produced the least CO2 in 2020 and 2021 in the rating, despite having the highest number of transactions. The increase in Stellar’s CO2 emissions of 189.6% is not nearly as damaging as it might first seem, amounting to 23.99 tons of CO2.
Further Findings
Low energy-intensive coins
View the full research here: https://forexsuggest.com/global-impact-of-crypto-trading/
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