91 million tons/year
Bitcoin causes twice as much CO2 as Switzerland
The cryptocurrency Bitcoin currently has twice the CO2 footprint of Switzerland. This is according to an analysis by the crypto portal Digiconomist. Calculated on an annual basis, the cryptocurrency network currently causes 90.93 million tons of CO2. By comparison, Switzerland's greenhouse gas emissions recently amounted to around 45 million tons per year.
The reason for the emissions is the energy-guzzling blockchain technology in the background on which the Bitcoin network is based. The challenge is to validate transactions on the blockchain in a forgery-proof manner. Until now, the "proof of work" method has been used for these systems. This involves solving complicated cryptographic puzzles.
Electricity from "mining" often comes from fossil sources
Whoever cracks the puzzle first gets to write the next entry in the blockchain and receives a reward in the form of Bitcoin. This process is also known as "mining" because it is used to "mine" new crypto coins. In mining, many players compete with each other, but only one ultimately wins. This is one of the reasons why this process consumes so much electricity. In many places, this also comes from fossil sources, which explains the high CO2 emissions.
According to Digiconomist, a single Bitcoin transaction currently generates as much CO2 as watching around 112,000 hours of YouTube videos - or processing 1.5 million credit card transactions.
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