The cryptocurrency Bitcoin currently has one twice as big CO2 footprint like Switzerland. This comes from an evaluation of the crypto portal Digiconomist out.
Calculated per year, the network causes the Cryptocurrency currently 90.93 million tons of CO2. For comparison: The Greenhouse gas emissions Switzerland recently amounted to around 45 million tonnes annually. The reason for the emissions is that they consume energy Blockchain technology in the background.
The Bitcoin network is based on blockchain technology. The challenge is to validate transactions on the blockchain in a forgery-proof manner. So far, these systems have used the procedure “Proof of Work” used. Complicated cryptographic puzzles have to be solved. 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 will also “Mining” called because it “mines” new crypto coins. In “mining” many players compete with each other, but only one ultimately comes into play. This is one of the reasons why this process uses 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 causes as much CO2 as watching around 112,000 hours of YouTube videos – or processing 1.5 million credit card transactions.
The Bitcoin price is currently around $67,300. Bitcoin reached its record high of almost $74,000 in mid-March. In November 2022, the price had fallen to below $16,000.
This year’s increase in… Bitcoin-Price has so far outperformed traditional assets, something with regard to the global stock markets or gold. Among other things, high inflows into the exchange-traded funds, which are only three months old Bitcoin in the USA caused the value of the token to rise. BitcoinProponents expect demand for cryptocurrencies to continue to grow. Critics, however, complain that… Bitcoin have no intrinsic value and are purely an object of speculation.
Now comes the “Halving”
The Bitcoin This month is experiencing the so-called “Halving”. At this event, which takes place every four years, the new offering is announced Bitcoin-Token halved. Some market observers see this as a tailwind for the upswing. At the same time, experts repeatedly warn of significant price fluctuations in the cryptocurrency.