A centralized power grid is increasingly problematic when energy inputs and outputs are inconsistent. More simply, renewable energy sources like wind and solar are somewhat uncertain, with variable output minute to minute, day to day. The Powerledger platform facilitates peer-to-peer energy trading and is effectively an operating system that tracks the trading of energy, flexibility services, and environmental commodities. Doctor Jemma Green is the Executive Chairman and co-founder and leads a team that includes several other women. POWR is required to participate in the Powerledger network and helps secure its various products, including energy trading, clean energy tracking, and verification.Īs an aside, Powerledger is one of the few blockchains/cryptocurrencies I’ve encountered that has a female co-founder. It debuted on Coinbase in November 2021, with the token’s price rising rapidly even while most cryptocurrencies fell in a market-wide crash. POWR was an Ethereum token established in 2016/17 that powers the Powerledger platform. At the time of writing, I have no investments in or ties to these or any other cryptocurrencies. So, which cryptocurrencies have a shot at being more sustainable than Bitcoin? Here are a few of the main contenders, in no particular order, presented with the caveat that this is absolutely not investment advice. As of March 31 st, 2021, Digiconomist estimates Ethereum as using more than 31 TWh annually, an all-time high. As the price of Ethereum has once again risen in 2021, so too has the energy consumption associated with the cryptocurrency. In November 2018, for instance, the Digiconomist estimates that Ethereum’s miners more than halved their energy consumption (from around 20 TWh to 10 TWh) in under 20 days because the price tanked. In numerous cases, market slides or crashes that drop the price of Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other big players in this area lead to miners slowing down or turning off their devices as it’s no longer profitable to run the machines at that price. Market dynamics also play a big role in the energy consumption of cryptocurrencies. Δ As Bitcoin rises in value, the climate suffers Interestingly, Bitcoin uses an algorithm that does allow for mining ASIC-based devices, and these devices are considerably more energy efficient than conventional graphic processing units (GPUs). A good example of this is RavenCoin which, by one calculation, accounts for 4.32% of the total rated power of the top 20 cryptocurrencies but has a market capitalization of just 0.06%. This is primarily because these currencies use ASIC-resistant algorithms that consume significantly more energy than should be expected relative to how much of the cryptocurrency market they represent. Cryptocurrencies that instead use a ‘Proof of Storage’ or ‘Proof of Stake’ system use far less energy, as do currencies using a technology called block lattice, which doesn’t require mining.Įven among ‘Proof of Work’ cryptocurrencies, however, some are more energy intensive than others. Why? Because Bitcoin relies on a ‘Proof of Work’ system that involves huge amounts of calculations (and, thus, processing power) to produce a single token. That said, some cryptocurrencies are inherently more energy efficient than Bitcoin. Scale them up, however, and they may be just as bad, if not worse than the cryptocurrency we currently love to hate. Many much smaller cryptocurrencies, for instance, naturally have a far lower energy footprint because they involve far fewer daily transactions compared to Bitcoin. This is because there are so many parameters at play. Truth be told, it’s incredibly difficult to point to any one currency as being ‘greener’ than others. Are you a Dogecoin fan? See why everyone’s favorite canine-inspired cryptocurrency didn’t make this list here. Keep the suggestions coming, ideally with solid leads/info on why a token deserves attention from investors who care about sustainability, and I’ll do my best to take a look. We’ve also written recently about the push for greater sustainability in the NFT community. UPDATE: Following the immense interest in this topic and great leads on other green cryptocurrencies, I’ve added even more tokens/networks below for our 2023 list. As Bitcoin rises in value, the climate suffers.
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