Cryptocurrencies are on the rise, particularly the most famous of them, bitcoin. At the start of this year, almost 20 million were in circulation. However, while these cryptocurrencies have notable advantages, they also have weaknesses.
High volatility or transaction delays are often cited among the main disadvantages of these virtual currencies. But there is another, less often highlighted: their ecological harm.
Indeed, the validity of transactions and, ultimately, the security of these cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, are ensured by “miners”, who use powerful, energy-intensive computers.
The carbon footprint of mining, as this operation is called, is therefore very strong. It also leads to the consumption of enormous quantities of water, necessary for cooling the power plants supplying the computer equipment used by miners.
The figures cited in fact give an idea of the ecological cost of the operations necessary for the functioning of bitcoins. They vary according to sources, but agree on the devastating effects of bitcoin on the environment;
According to the Digiconomist platform, the use and operation of bitcoin would have resulted, in 2021, in the consumption of 134 terawatt-hours, this unit of measurement equivalent to 1,000 billion watt-hours. Which represents approximately the annual energy consumption of a country like Argentina.
According to this study, this consumption, linked to bitcoin, would have increased by almost 90% compared to 2020. It also specifies that, during the same period, the activity associated with this cryptocurrency would have generated the emission of 64 megatons of CO2 in the atmosphere.
For its part, a UN study puts the electricity consumption due to bitcoin at more than 173 terawatt hours between 2020 and 2021, more than the consumption of Pakistan, a country of more than 230 million inhabitants.
According to the same study, the water requirements necessary for the operation of this cryptocurrency would be equivalent to the content of 660,000 Olympic swimming pools. This represents the needs of around 300 million people in areas of sub-Saharan Africa where water is often lacking.
Specialists are therefore now wondering about the possibility of modifying current mining processes.
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