What’s with Green Cryptos?
Cryptocurrencies have a huge carbon footprint. Digital mining of these requires a staggering amount of fossil fuel. As crypto becomes the currency of the future, environmentalists are concerned about its ecological impact. Last year, Elon Musk suspended accepting payments in bitcoin for Tesla cars out of this same concern. Bitcoin mining, which emits 57 million tons of CO2 annually, is poised to become the 5th largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world.
While less popular cryptos have a lesser footprint simply because they have lesser transactions, there are a few sustainable cryptocurrencies as well. While a Proof of Work system requires a global network of computers to run simultaneously for each transaction, the Proof of Stake system randomly allocates the coins to users, greatly reducing the consumption of fuel. Then there are currencies using block-lattice technology that doesn’t require mining at all. Here are four such sustainable cryptocurrencies:
1. Cardano
Cardano expends only 0.5479 kWh per transaction as compared to bitcoin’s 707 kWh and Ethereum’s 62.56 kWh per transaction and is currently one of the most environment-friendly cryptocurrencies. It is estimated that Cardano’s energy usage is 0.01 percent of that of a Bitcoin. Instead of the PoW model used by Bitcoin, Cardano‘s staking process uses the PoS blockchain model — in fact, it is the largest cryptocurrency to do so.
2. Nano
Nano has a carbon footprint of just 0.000112 kWh per transaction and uses block-lattice technology whereby every account on its network runs as an independent blockchain, known as account-chains, and the mining process is entirely skipped saving fuel.
3. Chia
Chia expands about 0.023kWh energy per transaction and is a good example of an eco-friendly cryptocurrency. Instead of Proof of Work, it uses Proof of Space and Time. Instead of ‘mining’ it uses the storage of the computer hard drive to ‘farm’ the coins. Instead of high-power CPUs and GPUs, here one needs a good storage device to house the coins. According to their white paper, Chiacoin uses 10,000 times less energy than that of a bitcoin
4. IOTA
IOTA expends just 0.00011 kWh per transaction, and works on Tangle, an innovative type of distributed ledger technology instead of the traditional blockchain model and has lower energy consumption. It is specifically designed for the Internet of Things (IoT) environment.
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