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As of September 2022, there are believed to be over 12,000 cryptocurrencies in circulation, including the popular Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. However, the process of mining cryptocurrencies can be harmful to our planet. Cryptos, which pollute nature, require large amounts of energy and are often not welcomed in a world currently strongly aware of the effects of climate change.
More and more people, including business moguls, are starting to become more aware of the global impact of crypto trading Elon Muskannounced his company in May 2021 Tesla It will stop accepting Bitcoin as payment due to its high emissions. Cryptocurrencies are also outright banned in many countries such as China, Egypt and Morocco, and partial bans have also been implemented in countries such as the Maldives, Vietnam and Libya.
Forexsuggest saw See how much CO2 is generated per transaction in some of the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies. Some methods are more complex and energy intensive than others, so each cryptocurrency used a different amount of power when processing transactions and mining new tokens.
Here we compare some of the most popular cryptocurrencies in terms of CO2 emissions and energy consumption per transaction.
Bitcoin is the most polluted cryptocurrency available. Uses 1183.58 kWh per transaction. This equates to 1775 pounds of CO2. So Bitcoin emits almost 1 tonne of CO2! That’s a pretty big increase from last year when cryptocurrencies generated 1,061 pounds of CO2.
Polygon is on the list as Ethereum moved to a new blockchain this year. This cryptocurrency uses 90.18 kWh per transaction. This equates to 135.27 pounds of CO2.
Bitcoin Cash causes the third highest amount of pollution. Cryptocurrencies use 18.96 kWh per transaction. That means it produces 28.44 pounds of CO2. Despite producing the third highest amount of pollution, Bitcoin Cash has managed to keep its energy consumption and CO2 emissions at the same level as last year.
Forexsuggest wanted to find out how much pollution each cryptocurrency of choice caused in a year. I wanted to know how many trees would need to be planted to offset the amount of pollution caused by each cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin’s CO2 emissions in 2021 have decreased from the previous year, but are now significantly higher. With a projected 86.3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2022, 431.6 million giant trees would need to be planted to remove Bitcoin’s annual CO2 emissions from the atmosphere.
After Ethereum moved to a new blockchain, Litecoin is on the list again, but this time in second place. Cryptocurrencies are currently estimated to generate 525.4 thousand tons of CO2 emissions per year. This means he needs to plant 2.6 million trees to combat pollution.
Francis Bignell
