Just change the code and bitcoin will be 99% greener

Perhaps the biggest cryptocurrency, bitcoin, is most often criticized for the high consumption of its network, which is powered by miners and computers around the world. A group of climate activists, led by Greenpeace, which recently launched a new campaign to “change the bitcoin’s code”, recently added to this criticism. Bloomberg.

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1 They demand changes following the example of Etherea

2 PoW versus PoS – a brief overview

3 Related posts:

The debate on high bitcoin consumption is perhaps the most at the beginning of last year started by billionaire Elon Muskwhich due to the environmental burden of cryptocurrencies in May unexpectedly announced that Tesla would stop accepting bitcoin payments.

After almost a year, however, no major changes took place and bitcoin according to data from Cambridge University, which regularly updates its metrics, consumes more energy per year than some entire countries, including Slovakia, the Czech Republic, but also Sweden.

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The group of climate activists and Greenpeace therefore launched at the end of March campaign called “Change the Code Not the Climate”, which calls for a change in the way bitcoins are mined to reduce its carbon footprint.

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They demand changes following the example of Etherea

The bitcoin network is currently built on the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm, which forces miners to “wrestle” in calculating complex calculations through which they group transactions grouped into blocks into a publicly available chain (blockchain).

This system is currently used by the second largest cryptocurrency ether, but it has been preparing for a full move to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol, which is due to take place in the second half of this year.

PoW versus PoS – a brief overview

Proof-of-Work (Bitcoin)
- works thanks to miners, which classify transactions grouped into blocks into a publicly available chain (blockchain)
- the work that miners have to do consists of millions of complex calculations and calculations, the difficulty of which increases in direct proportion to the number of miners in the network
- the first miner who manages to achieve the required output shares it in the network, which checks it and is subsequently rewarded with a cryptocurrency
Proof-of-Stake (version planned by Etherea)
- works by controlling transactions through “stacking”, ie locking cryptocurrencies, and validators who will verify transactions
- anyone who “stacks”, ie locks for a certain period of time, at least 32 ethers can
- the network then randomly randomly designates a group of validators, whose task will be to rank individual transactions into a final block, which is then verified in the network by a group of selected “certifiers” who check the proposed block and either accept or reject it.
- if the block is accepted, validators and certifiers will receive an ether reward

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It is Ethereum that believes that a complete transition to PoS will reduce the energy consumption of its network by up to 99%, which activists would welcome even the largest bitcoin. Billionaire Chris Larsen, who is one of the creators of the campaign and the founder of Ripple, claims that bitcoin should be so-called. “Soft forks” or “hard forks”, the first of which would implement the code changes directly into the old blockchain, while the hard fork, according to Larsen, would split the bitcoin into two separate networks. One could stay on Proof-of-Work and support the miners, and the other would work on a “cleaner” protocol.

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The largest bitcoin mining is currently taking place in the United States, where many companies and miners have moved after last year’s mining ban in China. Campaign Director Michael Brune for The Guardian he said that some old coal-fired or gas-fired power plants have even reopened in the country, which satisfy the consumption for cryptocurrency mining.

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According to Brunei, the transfer of bitcoin mining to renewable energy sources is not the starting point either. According to him, their share in the total extraction is minimal and without major changes in the code, bitcoin will still be a cryptocurrency, which requires maximum energy use.

The campaigners are even planning to take legal action against the new mass mining sites and are on their side to convince the biggest investors and bitcoin supporters who could help them change the cryptocurrency code.