bitcoins hold the potential to
revolutionize our economy in so many
incredible ways but maybe it is time to
ask ourselves whether we are ready to
embrace the dawn of technological
revolution if it means it comes to the
huge impact on our environment why
because the brutal is unintended
consequence of one of 21st century's
most promising technologies is that it
relies on a very energy intensive
production process termed Bitcoin mining
99% of all Bitcoin mining operations
around the world a run on supercomputers
termed mining machines which are
connected to the cryptocurrency network
and the sole purpose of these
supercomputers is to verify the origin
of Bitcoin transactions by solving a set
of highly complex mathematical equations
well it is not necessary to run these
mathematical equations two hundred
percent verify the origin it has become
the trusted verification system for a
global cryptocurrency network to ensure
that no one is tampering with a global
record of transactions so every time a
cryptocurrency supercomputer is trying
to run these mathematical equations the
one who has the highest likelihood of
winning the transactions will be
rewarded with a small set of bitcoins
the faster your computer the higher your
processing power the more likely you are
to be the winner of Bitcoin mines so to
make as much money as possible from this
process Bitcoin miners will try to stack
up on supercomputers filling up
warehouses industrial parks or even
villages with a huge amount of super
computer processing power because the
problem is that the Bitcoin ecosystem is
one that is very resource and energy
intensive relying on the latest
state-of-the-art cooling and equipment
technology that energy demand is so
large that it consumes as much as seven
gigawatt hours
a whole year or almost as much at point
21% of global energy demand it may not
sound like a lot but actually with the
same amount of electricity you can power
a whole country the size of Switzerland
while a single Bitcoin transaction
consumes as much electricity as 18 US
households in a full day but sourcing
such large amount of energy it can't be
done everywhere without biting into the
profit margins of Bitcoin miners you
need a country with relaxed
environmental standards large amount of
energy and cheap electricity prices to
most miners at one place comes to mind
namely China which is home to
three-fourths of global Bitcoin mining
operation
however China operates on one of the
world's most dirtiest sources of energy
call but if we keep going at the same
rate that we've been doing so far if we
keep pushing Bitcoin mining operations
actually we may be able to push the
planet beyond 2 degree warming as fast
as in the next two decades and that is
scary because once we reach 1.5 degrees
warming the impact on our global
ecosystems are going to be catastrophic
and irreversible