The President of Ripple has presented new proposals for Bitcoin mining, which will make the crypto-mining process more environmentally friendly. This statement came as Bitcoin prices collapsed, with cryptographic $500 billion washed away last week.
The high energy consumption of bitcoin mining activities was criticized in the last years by Bitcoin. Also, as crypt prices grow, the energy used during the mining process will grow.
The Bitcoin price has risen by nearly 500 per cent during the last year. Nevertheless, recent price changes last week have pushed Bitcoin prices below the crypto market cap after a market crash with more than $500 billion.
Bitcoin proposal to adopt PoS
Cryptocurrencies competition has led some developers to switch to quick and efficient mining methods. Co-founder of Ripple, Chris Larsen, urged Bitcoin to follow the trend and move towards environmentally-friendly models. According to Larsen, Bitcoin will continue to dominate the market with this shift.
At the moment, a proof-of-work system using a high power is the basis of the Bitcoin mining process. For the validation of transactions, miners use energy and calculate the hash rate they pay with Bitcoin.
The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, starts upgrading the Eth2 to a proof-of-stake model, expected to take place. With this upgrade, the mining fee and transaction fees will be reduced, as miners are removed.
Ripple XRP uses a federated consensus model for verifying transactions and securing its ledger, the fourth largest cryptocurrency in market cap. Larsen indicated that Bitcoin’s change is crucial given the climate impact of Bitcoin mining. Larsen said Bitcoin uses an average annual energy for mining to 123 TWh, with 12 million U.S. households powered. Each year also, Bitcoin mining emits 63 million tons of CO2.
Bitcoin damages the environment
Not the only major player that has pointed out Bitcoin’s vast use of energy is Chris Larsen. Recently, Bill Gates said that the climate did not match Bitcoin, while the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the consumption of Bitcoin’s energy is surprising.
However, the community of Bitcoin has strongly disputed Bitcoin’s environmentally harmful claims. A white paper recently released by two prominent supporters of cryptography, Ark Invest and Square, illustrating how the renewable power sectors can profit from bitcoin mining. Based on solar and wind energy for Bitcoin, the whitepaper states that renewable energy is boosting the supply- and demand-balancing sectors.
