Carbon footprint: Here are the most sustainable crypto coins you should know

crypto - climateaction

Carbon footprint: Here are the most sustainable crypto coins you should know

A Crypto Carbon Footprint list by cryptocurrency services comparison site, Cryptowisser, has revealed the top 100 most sustainable crypto coins.

According to a spokesperson for Cryptowisser, “The list gives a hopeful insight into the sustainable future of cryptocurrencies and inclinations of a progressive move to a com sustainable crypto future.”

The list ranks the top 100 crypto coins by their carbon footprints and how each coin impacts the environment. Their environmental impact is derived from calculations based on their energy consumption per transaction (calculating their transactional energy consumption to be equal to a single VISA transaction), and the results are displayed in a table using a color scheme.

According to the results shown in the table, more than 10% of the top 100 coins are carbon neutral or negative. It further shows that about 40% of cryptocurrencies have a significantly low carbon footprint.

However, a fraction of these coins seem to have a high carbon footprint according to the ranking, with Bitcoin (consuming 47.5kg of CO2 per transaction) and Ethereum which are the biggest coins, reportedly holding top spots as the least sustainable.

Recall we had written an article about Bitcoin and its environmental impact due to its Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanism which underpins its blockchain technology and secures its network and verifies transactions.

The problem is that Proof-of-Work consumes more energy and is carbon-intensive compared to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), another major mechanism that, though similar to PoW, is less energy- and carbon-intensive.

The PoW consensus mechanism entails miners competing against one another to mine a block and try to win and get rewards in a competition as specialized computers generate arbitrary mathematical puzzles per second. This process happens every 10 minutes and that is what requires a lot of energy because the more coins are produced, the more complex the calculations done by these computers become and this further requires heavy computers which leads to increased energy consumption.

To meet up with energy demands as Bitcoin value increases, huge amounts of electricity are used for the mining process thereby leading to a sizable carbon footprint.

Disclaimer

The information contained in this article is for general information purposes only. Actions taken based on it are strictly at your own risk.

Most Sustainable Coins

Most Sustainable Coins

Most Sustainable Coins

Most Sustainable Coins

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