As the nonfungible tokens craze took off at the start of the year, many climate-conscious artists vocalized their disapproval of Ethereum’s energy consumption. In May, Elon Musk then derailed Bitcoin (BTC), citing the energy consumed by Bitcoin as cause for Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) to withdraw its plans to accept BTC as payment for its electric cars.
Both of these events have provoked a surge of debate from inside and outside the blockchain community. In particular, the arguments tend to focus on two areas: Bitcoin’s energy consumption and its dependency on climate-damaging fossil fuels versus renewables and, secondly, the benefits of one blockchain platform over another — generally focusing on consensus models and promoting proof-of-stake as the greener option.