These findings were presented by researchers from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, in collaboration with consultancy Swiss Economics, at the request of the German Federal Environment Agency.

The authors note that the carbon footprint of a cryptocurrency depends significantly on the transaction validation mechanism it uses. In the case of Bitcoin, its substantial energy consumption is linked to mining, where thousands of computing devices around the world simultaneously solve complex mathematical problems to add new blocks to the network.

By comparison, a single transaction on the Ethereum network emits only around 0.003 kg of CO2. This is even lower than some traditional payment systems, including PayPal.

According to the researchers, Ethereum’s low energy consumption is due to the network’s transition to the Proof-of-Stake algorithm, which does not require large-scale computing power, unlike Bitcoin.

Source: newsbomb.gr