The CEO and chief designer of SpaceX; a priliminary investor, CEO and product architectof the Tesla Inc. Elon Musk, presented his critical take on the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin,and its mining. He denounced the currency for its "insane" energy consumption and itspossible hazardous effects on the environment and energy usage. He also currently suspendedpurchasing his vehicles using Bitcoin.
His decision caused the Bitcoin to dip more than 10%. Before his U-turn he was one ofmost notable patron of the cryptocurrency who invested a whopping sum of US$ 1.5 billion onbitcoin. "Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promisingfuture, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment," Musk tweeted on Wednesday.He followed up his tweet the other day with a graph of bitcoin's energy consumption.
His tweets:
On Wednesday(12th May, 2021)
Follow up tweet on Thrusday(13th May, 2021)
Ofcourse, it is true that the energy comsumption on mining Bitcoin has increased significantly in the past years and their impact on environment is surely increasing but considering the coal, oil, gold giants it is considerably low. Gold mining alone consumes 475 Million GigaJoule of energy let alone its recycling and labor cost.
Additional Information:
Yearly cost and energy consumption of different financial systems:
(Yearly cost in USD and energy consumption in GigaJoule)
• Gold mining: $105 Billion | 475 Million GJ
• Gold recycling: $40 Billion | 25 Million GJ
• Paper currency and minting: 28 Billion | 39 Million GJ
• Banking system: $1,870 Billion | 2,340 Million GJ
• Government system: $27,600 Billion | 5,861 Million GJ
• Bitcoin mining: $4.5 Billion | 183 Million GJ
