Crypto should do its bit for the environment

Crypto should do its bit for the environment

Bitcoin is changing the world. But in a year of staggering statistics for the technology, there is one of which the currency's elusive creator – their identity remains unknown – should be less proud.

New research suggests that it is, quite literally, changing the world. Academics at Cambridge University estimate that the currency's electricity consumption is 119.87 Terawatt-hours per year. This is more than the UAE's annual consumption and fast approaching Pakistan's, a country with the fifth largest population globally. Its addition to global energy consumption is essentially equivalent to a new superpower being magicked out of nothing.