If you have been on any social media or news outlet recently then you’ve heard the buzz around Bitcoin. While the value for bitcoin is rising it’s also consuming an astronomical amount of energy which is raising environmental red flags. The bitcoin network is consuming power at the rate of 30 two terawatts a year, which is the same amount as Denmark. One single transaction performed on the bitcoin network uses the same amount of energy as it takes for someone to power a home for nine days straight. The real concern is the potential harm of the global energy production doubling to keep up with Bitcoin. So the question remains, how do we reduce Bitcoin’s Energy usage? There are three ways to approach this problem: the coin’s value drops, the networks shrink, or the Bitcoin mining process changes completely. We will have to see how this phenomenon plays out.
