Researchers Find Bitcoin Mining is Environmentally Unsustainable

upstart writes:

Taken as a share of the market price, the climate change impacts of mining the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin is more comparable to the impacts of extracting and refining crude oil than mining gold:

In the paper titled, Economic estimation of Bitcoin mining's climate damages demonstrates closer resemblance to digital crude than digital gold, the authors suggest that rather than being considered akin to 'digital gold', Bitcoin should instead be compared to much more energy-intensive products such as beef, natural gas, and crude oil.

"We find no evidence that Bitcoin mining is becoming more sustainable over time," said UNM Economics Associate Professor Benjamin A. Jones. "Rather, our results suggest the opposite: Bitcoin mining is becoming dirtier and more damaging to the climate over time. In short, Bitcoin's environmental footprint is moving in the wrong direction."

[...] "Globally, the mining, or production, of Bitcoin is using tremendous amounts of electricity, mostly from fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas. This is causing huge amounts of air pollution and carbon emissions, which is negatively impacting our global climate and our health," said Jones. "We find several instances between 2016-2021 where Bitcoin is more damaging to the climate than a single Bitcoin is actually worth. Put differently, Bitcoin mining, in some instances, creates climate damages in excess of a coin's value. This is extremely troubling from a sustainability perspective."

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