Bitcoin network carbon emissions jump 17% after China ban

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The Bitcoin network’s proof-of-work consensus mining has long been the subject of environmental, social, and governance debates, and a new study can only add to the growing controversy around Bitcoin’s carbon footprint.

A new research report titled “Revisiting Bitcoin’s Carbon Footprint” published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Joules pointed out that China’s ban on cryptocurrency mining may not have contributed to the reduction of the carbon footprint of the Bitcoin network as propagated by many Bitcoiners; on the contrary, it increased by 17%.

China was the main hub for Bitcoin miners before May 2021 and accounted for over 60% of the Bitcoin network’s total hash rate. However, the blanket ban imposed by the government has led to the migration of most mining operations out of the country. The share of the Bitcoin mining hash rate in China fell from over 60% in May to near zero in August as miners moved to the United States, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Crypto experts have predicted that migrating miners out of China will not only make BTC mining more decentralized and greener, but the new Joule report shows otherwise. The new research report pointed out that the amount of renewable energy used to power BTC mining has fallen from 42% to around 25% since last August.

Main sources of electricity for Bitcoin Mining. Source: Joule

The study tracked the source of electricity powering mining operations to calculate the Bitcoin network’s carbon emissions and found that the best crypto blockchain emitted 65 megatons of carbon dioxide per year. The study concluded that miners in China were more focused on renewable energy than most major mining countries today.

Alex de Vries, one of the report’s authors, told Cointelegraph:

“The study in general highlights how Bitcoin mining has become even dirtier after last year’s Chinese mining crackdown. Many of the hydro miners who previously had access here have now been replaced by gas natural (in the US). On top of that, coal-based electricity in Kazakhstan is also dirtier than Chinese coal-based electricity. Altogether, this makes proof-of-work mining even more carbon intensive than it already was.

The Joule Journal study further contradicts a report pushed by the Bitcoin Mining Council led by MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, which claimed that the Bitcoin network uses up to 66% sustainable energy.

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