Many people see Bitcoin as the currency of the future. Others, however, believe it will never reach the population sufficiently. It’s impossible to predict what will happen, but what is clear is that a future with Bitcoin as the dominant currency could cost us dearly in terms of our water footprint. It has long been known that water consumption for bitcoin mining It is huge, but a comprehensive calculation like the one the financial economist has just made has never been done. Alex de Vriesbelonging Free University of Amsterdam. And they estimate that a single Bitcoin transaction could require as much water as filling pool in the backyard.
It is estimated that the drought situation worldwide has increased by almost 30% since the beginning of the 21st century. The country that leads the world in popularity of cryptocurrencies is India, a place where 600 million people do not have safe access to drinking water. The situation is no better in the great economic powers. The United States, for example, has been faced with drought they become more intense as climate change progresses. Thus, water loss due to Bitcoin mining should become a social issue.
There is talk about this, but the message does not seem to be getting through to the population, so de Vries, in a study published in Cellular reportsHe wanted bring the numbers to the situation. Unfortunately they are very disappointing.
What is the reason for wasting water when mining Bitcoin?
Illegal circulation of cryptocurrency (in the legal sense of the word) is controlled by the so-called block chain or blockchain. It is a kind of registry in which all users’ records are linked and encrypted to protect their security. There are no intermediary banks, since the users themselves, for example, control Bitcoin price. The more demand it grows, the less it falls. And it is the users who jointly manage this huge ledger of accounts.
When it comes to cryptocurrencies, there are two types of users. On the one hand, there are those who sell and buy Bitcoins. And, on the other hand, those who believe. The task of obtaining cryptocurrency is known as Bitcoin mining, due to equivalence with gold mining. But it has nothing to do with land and minerals.
Simply (albeit in a complex way), as the demand for Bitcoin increases, some people around the world solve computer algorithms aimed at producing new blocks from Bitcoin. blockchain. These miners are paid in Bitcoins for each algorithm they solve. Therefore, it is necessary that they do it as quickly as possible to compete with others. For this you need extremely powerful computers, which provide random solutions to the mathematical problems underlying the algorithms until they find the right one. Data that is not a solution is useless and unused.
These computers are so powerful that they require a lot of electricity, with all the associated fossil fuel and water costs. But, in addition, you need even more water to cool computersis in large data centers.
This is the main reason for wasting water in Bitcoin mining. Any activity that requires electricity is Water footprint this has to be taken into account, but this one is especially huge.
Numbers to understand the situation
According to calculations by de Vries, known on social networks as Digiconomistwater consumption for bitcoin mining is 8.6 to 35.1 gigalitres (GL) water per year in the United States alone. At the global level, the author of this study estimates that annual water consumption is about 1600 gigalitres.
But this was not limited to just calculating the total water consumption for Bitcoin mining. If requirements are retrieved for a single transaction, this figure will be equal to 16,000 liters water on average. This is approximately 6.2 million times larger than a credit card transaction. In addition, this amount of water can be used to fill a small swimming pool, such as those found in the backyard of a house. What would a future be like in which every time someone received a payment or made a small purchase, a pool full of water was wasted?
But the worst thing is that it has just begun. If the current trend continues, water consumption for Bitcoin mining is expected to increase to 2300 GL. These will be almost immediate numbers and will continue to grow from there. So much so that the water footprint of cryptocurrencies could affect drinking water. That water that has become a luxury in one of the countries through which most of these currencies move. This is definitely something to consider before this payment method beats the rest.
Source: Hiper Textual
