Green crypto: how to invest in eco-friendly crypto

The ecological impact of crypto has long been a key concern among investors and onlookers, but is a green crypto truly possible?

Green cryptocurrency has become a buzzword in blockchain technology, primarily due to Bitcoin’s (BTC) significant carbon footprint. Bitcoin consumes approximately 150 terawatt-hours of electricity, this is more than the entire country of Argentina, which has over 45 million residents. 

A 2022 report by Sciencedirect revealed that the carbon intensity of power consumed by the BTC network increased from 478.27 gCO2/kWh in 2020 to 557.76 gCO2/kWh in August 2021. Ethereum is just a little behind in energy consumption. 

With these concerns, the question on everyone’s mind is whether the industry can transition toward a more sustainable and eco-friendly cryptocurrency future.

What is green crypto?

The concept of ‘green crypto’ refers to cryptocurrency projects and initiatives that prioritize sustainability and aim to mitigate the environmental impact of blockchain technology, particularly proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanisms required by cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

Proponents of more environmentally friendly crypto advocate for alternative consensus mechanisms that are more energy-efficient, such as proof-of-stake (PoS) or proof-of-authority (PoA). These rely on validators or stakeholders rather than miners solving complex mathematical puzzles, thereby reducing energy consumption.

Additionally, green crypto initiatives may focus on promoting renewable energy sources for mining operations, implementing energy-saving techniques in blockchain protocols, or offsetting carbon emissions generated by crypto mining activities.

Promising green crypto projects: most energy efficient cryptocurrency

Carbon neutrality is reasonably achievable in the crypto ecosystem. Some mining and crypto businesses claim to have gone fully green in recent years. 

In 2022, a Costa Rican hydropower plant made news for offering carbon-neutral crypto mining services. The plant feeds about 650 computers, mining crypto for 150 customers and uses clean energy. It began mining crypto amid the covid-19 pandemic. 

Crypto mining company Bitfarm claims that at least 99% of the power they use in mining Bitcoin is green. The company’s website states that they use 158 megawatts of clean energy. Neptune, a digital-asset-focused network, also markets itself as green, stating that they are “focused on using renewable energy like solar, hydro, and wind to power [their] Bitcoin mining operations”. 

ADA, the native coin of the Cardano network, is among the most sustainable cryptocurrencies. Cardano uses PoS consensus, which is highly energy efficient. The blockchain completes 1,000 transactions per second, using energy quite well by reducing electricity costs. Research shows that the Cardano network consumes 6GWh of power, hence energy efficiency. 

Another eco-friendly crypto coin is Ripple (XRP), which maintains an excellent ecological stand with an average transaction power usage of 0.0079kWh. Some infographics indicate that XRP uses the least power compared to Bitcoin, Ether, and Visa. By completing 1,500 transactions every second, XRP vastly reduces its carbon footprint. 

Investing in green cryptocurrencies

Theoretically, investing in green cryptocurrencies involves a similar process to investing in any other type of cryptocurrency. Investors should begin by researching green cryptocurrencies and projects that align with their environmental goals. A helpful technique may be to gain a good understanding of the underlying technology of the more sustainable crypto.

Investors should also ensure that their crypto exchange of choice supports the trading of green cryptocurrencies before depositing funds into their exchange account. Once the account is funded, they can buy the green cryptocurrencies they feel meet their needs.

After purchasing green cryptocurrencies, buyers may want to consider transferring them to a secure crypto wallet for storage.

It’s also important to remember that cryptocurrencies carry inherent risks, including price volatility and regulatory uncertainty. Though a particular cryptocurrency may meet an investor’s sustainability needs, they should also take into account factors like their expertise in the market, attitude towards risk, and portfolio spread to determine if it’s a suitable choice for them.Can crypto go green?

The future of green crypto

Continuous efforts made by many companies, especially mining ones, focus on reducing crypto’s carbon footprint in the next few years. How can the general crypto ecosystem become fully green?

Changing the consensus algorithms

As mentioned above, PoW is a highly energy-intensive system where miners work very complex computations to release new coins. Cryptographic computations consume a lot of resources and most have a very high carbon footprint. Machines like application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) created to optimize energy consumption and mining processes still use massive amounts of power.

However, newer cryptocurrencies are switching to more evolved and energy-efficient consensus mechanisms. PoS is the most popular consensus system, it uses significantly less power since block creation, and rewarding depends on the amount of stake held by network participants. 

PoS has been evolving into better versions like Delegated PoS, Nominated PoS, Mutualized PoS, and others. Networks such as Cardano, Polygon (MATIC), and Polkadot (DOT) use some variation of PoS consensus. The Ethereum Merge network update in September 2022 also shifted Ethereum from a PoW to a PoS model, which was expected to help reduce ETH’s energy usage by about 99%. 

Alternative energy sources

Another route to more environmentally friendly cryptocurrencies is leveraging alternative sources of energy, such as solar, wind, and hydropower. 

For example, SolarCoin (SLR) intends to incentivize the use of solar power by offering 1 SLR for every megawatt hour of energy generated through solar power. Powerledger (POWR) is part of the Powerledger platform, which facilitates peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading.

Much like the aforementioned Costa Rican plant, Genesis mining is an Iceland-based mining rig offering cloud mining services that uses renewable energy for its operations. 

Conclusion

Investing in eco-friendly crypto presents an opportunity to align financial goals with environmental consciousness. As the global focus on sustainability intensifies, the demand for more sustainable crypto projects is likely to grow, potentially offering lucrative investment opportunities. 

However, it’s crucial to approach these investments with caution, ensuring that a crypto is suitable for an investors financial as well as their environmental needs and taking care to never invest more money than they can afford to lose.

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