Tag: CO2 emissions

The use of Bitcoin leads to about 22 megatonnes in CO2 emissions annually, comparable to the total emissions of cities such as Hamburg or Las Vegas, according to the most detailed analysis to date of the cryptocurrency's carbon footprint. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany analysed such data as the IPO filings of hardware manufacturers and the IP addresses of Bitcoin "miners." The study, published in the journal Joule, was able to localise 68 percent of the Bitcoin network computing power in Asian countries, 17 percent in European countries, and 15 percent in North America. Although Bitcoin is a virtual currency, the energy consumption associated with its use is very real. For a Bitcoin transfer to be executed and validated, a mathematical puzzle ...