Electric Waste, a concept that must End

With the impact caused by Elon Musk, several ghosts of the past are once again approaching the leading cryptocurrency. We see how the environmental issue associated with Bitcoin (BTC) arises again, and at this point it is necessary to face this situation and prove that the concept was always wrong. It is imperative, at this point in the life of the queen coin, to address this situation that begins almost from the moment of its conception.

The effects of the price drop have many causes, not necessarily the comments of someone who has simply demonstrated and disappointed that he is not ready and able to enter into a complete economic and financial turnaround. The key point is not that Tesla stops accepting BTC, the key point is the anti-environmental ad that is alleged against BTC and that is where the damage becomes intense and deep.

Truly this trojan horse shows how little knowledge he has about the consumptions that can be associated with BTC. No one denies that this token consumes energy, the Proof of Work (PoW) is an opening for the increase of computational power, however it does not really highlight the origin and the way this energy comes from. It is not the consumption but the "what" is used; more than 70% of the energy consumed in the mining network comes from renewable sources. I quote an excerpt from the HébergementWebs.com portal where it indicates that there is a global comparative study on Cryptoassets 2020 by the University of Cambridge where it indicates that "76% of digital currency miners use renewable energy sources".

It is also necessary to evaluate the source of the data collected to verify the consumption numbers of the BTC network. We do not have an exact number of this consumption, only approximate numbers that we can see from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) and digiconomist.net. The difference of these two records is not congruent even with a margin of error.

Nor do we clearly see real comparisons of consumption in other fields or areas of expenditure, the critics make no reference to networked banking systems, or to the extraction of gold, silver and other minerals. They simply do not go into the basic concepts of environmental pollution for the sake of convenience.

The truth is that BTC must now focus on cleaning up an image as a polluter and carbon emitter. And there is no shortage of naysayers calling for a change in the form of consensus to a Proof of Stake (PoS) like Ripple co-funder Chris Larsen. It is a hotly debated topic, part of the genuine essence of BTC beyond its concept of ungovernability is its security. BTC is purely monetary, its money function is a definition that is tied to an intense computational network, and every payment made is guaranteed with a stamp of computational work by the security of the network.

The expansion of renewable and sustainable sources of electricity generation is a major contributor to the consumption of BTC. The fiat system remains a major consumer, with no clear role for society.

The PoS does not have the same answer, but in depth, only this consensus system shifts the energy consumption from the nodes to a centralized process. There are sustainable arguments to prove the consumption record of the BTC, but it is time to make even more effort to show it and to face this issue once and for all in order to finish it once and for all.

In this writing I leave some links that show the basis of this basis of this article and I hope it will be useful for the construction of arguments when debating on this controversial and much discussed topic. Knowledge is the key to be able to finish this topic that sadly has been the Achilles heel of the BTC.

This information is proprietary content and there is no room for plagiarism. I also leave the links to my blogs on Publish0x and read.cash so you can read this article.