The involvement of bitcoin in molding the world economy has been nonnegligible. There was a time when forex and stock trading were considered champions of attracting investment in the virtual world, but now the influence of cryptocurrencies has changed the mind of investors and traders to shift their investment to the most emerging virtual investment. Try out the bitcoin fortress to know about the latest market trends and investment opportunities.
The criticism remains unchanged regarding cryptocurrencies’ authenticity and reliability, as nothing physically valuable supports bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and there is only a hard drive that could behold as a tangible asset other than that nothing physically represents cryptocurrencies. No matter how uncertain or unregulated cryptocurrencies are, people are optimistic about it and making massive profits through trading.
As bitcoin price is touching the sky as more investments by global institutes all around the world has started to take bitcoin as an investment opportunity. The impact of bitcoin on climate change is something that has not been considered serious in the last couple of years and now it is becoming increasingly a matter of concern. One of the environmental facts that not many people are not aware of is that bitcoin mining generates more than 35 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, and the energy usage sometimes reaches as much as used in Poland.
The bitcoin mining operations involve the use of Application-specific integrated circuits, which utilize a lot of energy in bitcoin mining. The ASIC is continuously criticized for having a negative impact on the environment and it is very important to replace it with some which are less hazardous to society. The electronic waste generated from bitcoin mining is more than 11,000 tonnes each year dumped on cities around the global south.
Adding more to it, the use of fossil fuels to mine bitcoin is also something that adds up to a negative impact on the environment, like in china more than 60% of the bitcoin mining is operated through fossil fuels.
Earlier, when bitcoin was introduced, there was a myth that it will replace gold mining with bitcoin mining, as gold mining is considered destructive and environmentally hazardous. Bitcoin as a digital substitute to gold was a good idea, but things do not change accordingly, if gold was to be replaced by bitcoin then it was obvious for the gold price to climb down as bitcoin price escalated, but gold price reached an all-time high in 2020 as bitcoin.
The hope for a Green bitcoin was in debate, and it was assumed that as multi-national companies and the corporate sector will shift their attention towards bitcoin, they will invest to make the procedure of bitcoin mining less hazardous, the hope was even more highlighted when investors like Tesla bought bitcoin. It was expected that the use of renewable sources of energy would be encouraged, and incentives will be there for those who will follow the less harmful way of mining, but the reality is that miners will always go for the cheapest way, and as a result, there is no as such progress on “green bitcoin”.
Conclusion:
There is no industry in the world that does not harm the environment, every industry has its own way of contributing to environmental hazards. The real question is what steps are taken to reduce the impact of negative externalities.