Bitcoin uses energy to validate transactions. Most bitcoin mining projects validate transactions using energy that is independent of any existing source or network, helping to save the climate.
It is a common argument from critics of bitcoin that it uses too much power and energy, leading to more carbon emissions. As a result, the climate becomes polluted and ruins it. Actually, they are not happy with bitcoin. They believe that it cannot do anything useful for the world.
Critics think that you are only making it easier for a casino or some people to get rich. For these people, cryptocurrency is totally useless and a dangerous system that is consuming energy and if we don’t stop it right now it will end up the energy sources.
These fatalistic predictions can only earn Twitter likes, actually, it’s far from the truth. In fact very far. These predictions that cryptocurrencies are destroying the world are actually quite the opposite of what Bitcoin actually does. The oilprofit contains all information about this
By the end of this article, you will know and understand how cryptocurrencies and bitcoins consume energy to confirm transactions and to drive more efficient energy use or to destroy the ecosystem.
Need of energy for cryptocurrency
The main thing that confuses most people is that cryptocurrency does not have analog and it is a novel type of monetary system. The most important thing for everyone to understand is that it is not like PayPal or visa, it requires power to perform different tasks such as validating transactions.
This energy requires securing the history of currency transfers. The recipient of the crypto is confident that they have received the real money because many miners work on it expanding the energy, which caused an unavoidable cost. Then, they put that transaction in a block and send it to the blockchain. This is a great guarantee of completion of a transaction called finality.
If we eliminate energy consumption, there will be no real cost for transactions. Some will say it’s fine, but what if the sender changes their mind and stops the transaction or sends it to any other wallet instead of your own?
And now you can never get your money back. Or the sender can be a scammer and send money to two different places at the same time. It would not fly on a payment system or monetary system. A small copy-paste problem can cause very big problems. So, cryptocurrency is the only system that can solve these kinds of problems and without involving any third party. While power or energy is the basic component of this system.
Most of the energy consumed by bitcoin means more costs to secure the system. More security means safer transactions and a secure money transfer history that is more expensive than the energy consumed by the system.
Energy consumption as compared to Visa payment
Critics also say that the cryptocurrency power consumption for a transaction as compared to a Visa payment is very horrible. That proves that the bitcoin system is not good for the environment.
But it is not an actual assumption, all the transactions are not always small, like buying a pizza or burger. However, the group of these small transactions can be a big amount and can represent millions of pizzas and burgers. But the cost of each transaction will matter.
But in the case of big transactions, transactions need up to two days to be final which sometimes can be irritating and stuck the capital. The critics also miss the key point that why bitcoin uses energy. Bitcoin is not only a payment system, but it also secures transactions and it is an entirely new form of portable, scarce, and divisible commodity and money.
Other traditional monetary systems, such as the US dollar, achieve finality and scarcity through trust, which is a key property of money. We trust bankers and politicians for a good monetary system.
We give them the power to create currency, but they also have the power to block or reverse transactions. Most of these bankers and officials are not elected by us. They are mostly employees of central and commercial banks. And our wealth is totally in their hands, we can do nothing while bitcoin frees us from them.
So environmentalists, if they really want to save the Earth, should research new energy sources. If you really want to have a real impact.
Story by Affan Hashmi. Total convert to crypto and blockchain. As a content writer, he researches and writes about various projects in the cryptoverse.
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