Bitcoin's high carbon footprint

There are fraudulency and malfeasance in any financial sector, and the stock market also has bull market and bear market. However, the extremely high carbon footprint generated by Bitcoin "mining" is particularly criticized by the society. As a result, Musk, a "big fan" of cryptocurrency, claimed that Tesla stopped using the payment method by Bitcoin for buying Tesla cars due to the high pollution in the process from mining to trading.

The data of International Energy Agency (IEA) showed that Bitcoin mining consumed 50 to 70 megawatt hours in 2019, which was roughly about the entire national consumption of Switzerland (consumed 63 megawatt hours per year). The real-time data of Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index is even more concerning. As of May 23rd, the total energy consumption of Bitcoin is between 40-445 megawatt hours, averagely about 116.57 megawatt hours. The annual electricity consumption of "mining" exceeds that of the Netherlands, Philippines and other countries, which is 0.54% of the global electricity consumption.

By this speed, the total electricity consumption of Bitcoin will likely soar to more than 130 MWH / h in 2021, while the electricity consumption of technology companies such as Microsoft and Google was 10 and 12 MWH respectively in 2020.