Bitcoin Is The Cause Behind Carbon Dioxide Emissions On Comparing To Las Vegas Or Hamburg

The use of Bitcoin causes around 22 megatons in CO2 emissions per year, comparable to the total emissions from cities such as Hamburg or Las Vegas. That is the conclusion of the most detailed analysis to date of the carbon footprint of the cryptocurrency.

Although Bitcoin is a virtual currency, the consumption of energy linked with its use is very real. For a Bitcoin transfer to be executed and validated, an arbitrary computer in the global Bitcoin network must solve a mathematical problem. The network, to which anyone can join, rewards puzzle solvers in Bitcoin. The information capacity in this process, such as Bitcoin mining, has increased in recent years. Statistics show that it quadrupled in 2018 alone.

Consequently, the increase of Bitcoin to the cryptocurrency issue imposes an additional burden on the climate. Several studies have tried to quantify the CO2 emissions caused by Bitcoin mining. "However, these studies are on the basis of various data," says Christian Stoll, who conducts research at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The team began to calculate the power of the network. This depends on the hardware used for Bitcoin mining. "Today special systems are utilized, known as ASIC-based miners," explains Stoll. In 2018, the three manufacturers that control the ASIC mining market planned OPI. The team of mandatory companies of IPO to calculate market shares of products of companies. The study also had to consider mining. "In those operations, additional power is needed just to cool the data center," says Stoll. To investigate the orders of magnitude involved, this will be the result.

The researchers determined Bitcoin's annual electricity, as of November 2018, would be approximately 46 TWh. And how much CO2 is emitted when this energy is generated? Here, too, the research team wanted beyond the mere news. The key question, therefore: Where are the miners located?

Once again, the live tracking data from the mining groups provided the decisive information. "In these groups, the miners combine their computing power to get a quicker turn in the reward for solving riddles, similar to the people who participate in the lotteries," explains Stoll. The IP addresses in the statistics published by the two smaller groups allow the miners to join groups in their countries of origin. Based on this data, the team was able to locate 68% of the power of the Bitcoin Red calculation in Asian countries, 17% in European countries and 15% in North America. Researchers compare this conclusion with the results of another method to locate the IP addresses of individual miners using an Internet search engine for things. Then, their results are combined with statistics on the carbon intensity of power generation in different countries.

The conclusion of the study says that the system of Bitcoin has a carbon footprint of between 22 and 22.9 megatons per year. That's comparable to the footprint of cities like Hamburg, Vienna or Las Vegas.

"Naturally, there are more important factors than climate change, however, the carbon footprint is big enough to be worth the carbon," says Christian Stoll. "To improve the ecological balance, one possibility could be more universal or an additional capacity for renewable generation."

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190613104533.htm