- Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse believes that cryptocurrencies should take responsibility for their carbon footprint.
- One BTC transaction reportedly consumes more energy than the average British household does in two months.
In a recent tweet, Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, raised his concerns over the massive energy consumption devoted to the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks. His remarks came in response to an article by The Telegraph UK, which claimed that one bitcoin transaction consumes more energy than the average British household does in two months. Garlinghouse did not, however, provide an incentive for miners to take responsibility for the issue.
Brad Garlinghouse tweeted:
Energy consumption for BTC and ETH mining is a massive waste and there’s no incentive to take responsibility for the carbon footprint. Absolutely that this isn’t high on the agenda for the growing climate crisis… -@bgarlinghouse
The amount of energy needed to run crypto networks has skyrocketed to an annual high of 77.78 terawatt-hours. This equals the amount of electricity consumed by all of Chile, as per the Telegraph report. Alex de Vries, a blockchain specialist at PwC, said that the carbon footprint of a single bitcoin transaction is equal to 780,650 Visa transactions or spending 52,043 hours watching YouTube.
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