As much as blockchain technology may be, decentralized and free from the constraints of a centralized world, the price to pay was the use of an inefficient consensus protocol from an energy point of view, intentionally, and therefore in the course of these 12 years, the bitcoin blockchain but also that of etheruem, are literally wasting electricity inefficiently.
The aforementioned blockchains use a consensus protocol called PoW (Proof of Work) which places the burden of block resolution on the miner who must prove that he has found the block with certain parameters and to do this, high computational power is required. in order to find a number that meets the protocol.
But how much do these blockchains consume?
To answer this question, we need to make use of data from some platforms that have started monitoring the consumption of these blockchains, and for example as regards the bitcoin blockchain, we have some frightening numbers:
- The impact of CO2 amounts to 36.95 Mt, similar to New Zealand
- Electricity consumption is equal to 77.78 TWh, comparable to what Chile consumes
- The waste of energy amounts to 11.36 kt, comparable to the state of Luxembourg
- Energy impact per single transaction of 639.68 kWh, comparable to the consumption of a house for 21.93 days
As for the ethereum blockchain, which is one of the most used, we see that the data is slightly lower due to its young age than that of bitcoin, but that it is following the same steps and in fact we have:
- Electricity consumption of 21.07 TWh, comparable to Azerbaijan
- Energy impact per single transaction equal to 45.04 kWh, comparable to the consumption of a house for 1.52 days
As we can see from the data, these blockchains are by no means respectful of the environment and at this rate they will be a considerable problem, since they do not even have the mechanisms to try to reduce emissions or compensate for this situation with initiatives aimed at reducing CO2. .
Surely in the long term the situation will not be sustainable and, necessarily, it will be necessary to avoid using these blockchains, or changing their consensus protocols or exploiting systems in which it is possible to use the related crypto, on other less energy-intensive blockchains.
And the other blockchains?
If we take for example the EOS blockchain, which uses the DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) consensus protocol, we can see that the data is highly encouraging because for example:
- The impact of CO2 amounts to 562 t, less than the city of Sydney in Australia
- Electricity consumption amounts to 1261.44 MWh, almost half of what all of Mexico consumes
So the EOS blockchain consumes very little compared to other blockchains, and does not have the problem of increasing it, because there is no algorithm that requires more and more energy resources and we can say that this consumption will be maintained over time if not even lowered for better energy efficiency.
As if that were not enough, most of the Block Producers (BP) of this blockchain, have provided a certificate in which all the data of their energy consumption and CO2 impact are revealed and all the strategies to mitigate this consumption, making in fact the EOS blockchain, the first blockchain in the world to be sustainable and "carbon neutral".
What can i do to reduce my electricity consumption on bitcoin and ethereum?
The answer is very simple and involves using and moving our cryptocurrencies such as BTC and ETH on the EOS blockchain, since there are several tokens that emulate the supply such as pTokens, pBTC and pETH, and therefore you will have countless advantages such as:
- Faster transaction speed
- A zero cost for transaction fees
- A considerable saving in electricity and CO2, given the transaction costs mentioned above
How do these tokens work?
To answer this question, we must understand that we are in the territory of decentralized finance (DeFi) since we are going to block our cryptocurrencies and obtain new tokens that are pegged to them, and to do so we must follow a certain procedure, or sell them all. our assets and buy them back on the EOS blockchain.
All these procedures and how to bring these cryptocurrencies from one blockchain to another are explained in detail in the book that explains the various topics in detail, which takes the name of "Mastering DeFi - A practical guide for beginners and the advanced", important because it not only explains the basics of this sector and the various steps of the various protocols, over 30, but it is also the only one that examines 3 different blockchains such as Ethereum (ETH), EOS and Tron (TRX).
A book that analyzes the macro-categories of decentralized finance which are:
All organized into 8 chapters and also divided by blockchain so as to have a complete picture of what we find on the various blockchains and also make the relative comparisons to leave maximum freedom for anyone to use the blockchain they prefer without closing the door to others.
Over 30 protocols analyzed in detail and details, with relative fundamental steps, an indication of the various costs incurred to carry out the various transactions, so as to make the reader aware before he can interact with him.