- Researchers point fingers at BTC mining and say it is responsible for climate damage.
- “Each $1 in BTC market value created was responsible for $0.35 in global climate damages,” states the report.
- Micheal Saylor debunks all myths related to BTC-energy-related climate damage.
Bitcoin (BTC) came under the pump when researchers of the department of economics at the University of New Mexico published on September 29, a report on Bitcoin’s energy usage and impact on the environment.
The report provides economic estimates of the energy-related climate damages of mining Bitcoin via proof of work. Moreover, the report considers three climate sustainability criteria to signal when the climate damages may be unsustainable.
According to the figures obtained from 2016-2021, firstly, it was observed that the per coin climate damages from BTC were increasing rather than decreasing with industry maturation. Secondly, during specific time periods, BTC climate damages exceeded the price of each coin created.
Lastly, the report states:
Each $1 in BTC market value created was responsible for $0.35 in global climate damages, which as a share of market value is in the range between beef production and crude oil burned as gasoline, and an order-of-magnitude higher than wind and solar power.
However, it is worth mentioning that Micheal Saylor, the MicroStrategy executive chairman, came out swinging against all allegations claiming Bitcoin to be unsustainable earlier in September when the Merge was around the corner.
As per the sources, the sheer volume of misinformation and propaganda circulating around BTC made Saylor take to Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) to unfold the truth. He argued against the notion that proof of work BTC mining isn’t energy efficient and claimed that BTC is the “cleanest industrial use of electricity and is improving its energy efficiency at the fastest rate across any major industry.”
When Saylor stood his ground and defended BTC, Lachlan Feeney, the founder, and CEO of Australian-based blockchain development agency, Labrys, claims that with the Merge, there would be immense pressure on BTC to justify the proof of work system over the long term.
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