The environmental sustainability of cryptocurrencies has been long debated in the crypto community. The king of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, has received the most bashing for its high energy consumption with various reports being published drawing comparisons to show the critical situation that crypto world is.
A Citigroup report has stated Bitcoin is now consuming 66 times more energy than it did in 2015. The report also warned of increased scrutiny to be faced by corporations and large-scale investors of Bitcoin for the carbon emissions.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also put a lot of things in perspective and people are considering environment conservation to be more important than ever. The parallel rise of the cryptocurrency market means a rise in the energy consumption by the industry – which had already been debated on at length.
However, the report also cites the energy consumption to have not increased as much as expected. The price of Bitcoin has increase more than 170 times with the energy consumption increase only being at 66x.
A Crypto Climate Accord is also in the works as private entities also taking the situation in their own hands to curb the problem. The Accord is replicating the Paris Climate Accord and the partners aim to increase the collaboration in the whole community to move towards sustainable energy.