Bitcoin and Ether have sparked concern about the amount of electricity they consume — and the amount of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions they emit as a result. The European Union is already mired in an energy crisis that has sent electricity prices skyward over the last year and has become even more complicated as the union attempts to wean itself off Russian gas supplies.
The Bitcoin network consumes more electricity per year than Norway and would rank 27th in the world if it were a country. The majority of that electricity is consumed by a purposefully inefficient technique called “proof of work” for confirming transactions. Bitcoin miners utilize specialized computers to solve complicated puzzles in order to earn fresh tokens and verify transactions. These more difficult-to-solve problems ultimately embed energy inefficiency into the blockchain.
