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Bitcoin network’s proof-of-work mining consensus has been a topic of evironmental, social and governance (ESG) debates for a long time and a new study may only add to the growing controversy around BTC's carbon footprint.
A new research report titled “Revisiting Bitcoin’s carbon footprint” published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Joules has highlighted that the Chinese crypto mining ban might not have contributed to the reduction in the carbon footprint of the Bitcoin network as propagated by many Bitcoiners, on the contrary, it has increased by 17%.
China was the primary hub for bitcoin miners before May 2021 and represented over 60% of the total bitcoin network hashpower. But the government's general ban has led to the migration of most mining operations out of the country. The share of Chinese mining hashpower increased from over 60% in May to almost zero in August as miners moved to the United States, Russia and Kazakhstan.
Cryptography experts have predicted that migrating miners out of China would not only make BTC mining more decentralized and greener, but the new joule report shows the opposite. The new research report highlighted that the amount of renewable energy used to power BTC mines has declined from 42% to around 25% since last August.
Related: Georgia punches well above its weight for Bitcoin mining: Report
The study tracked the source of electricity powering mining operations to calculate the carbon emissions of the BTC network and found that the top crypto blockchain emits 65 megatons of carbon dioxide annually. The study concluded that miners in China were more focused on renewable energy than most leading mining countries today.
Alex de Vries, who wrote the report, said to Cointelegraph:
"The study in general underlines how bitcoin mining has become even dirtier after last year's Chinese mining crackdown. Many of the previously available hydroelectric miners have now been replaced by natural gas (in the U.S.). Furthermore, coal-fired electricity in Kazakhstan is also dirtier than coal-fired electricity in China. Overall, this makes evidence of 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 utilizes up to 66% sustainable energy.
