Bitcoin’s Dirty Environmental Secret Could Be More Costly Than We Ever Expected

According to a new study, the energy costs of mining Bitcoin alone could cause a 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperatures within 20 years.

Bitcoin might be promising a brave new world of financial freedom, but it’s also responsible for a huge spike in electricity use, so the new study has attempted to put a number on what this might mean for the environment.

Considering Bitcoin is just one of several emerging cryptocurrencies currently being processed on computers and servers the world over, it might get to a point where the environmental costs of these decentralised payment systems are in danger of outweighing the benefits.

Researchers from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa crunched the numbers to come up with a projection of how much electricity Bitcoin might demand if the cryptocurrency starts to take off and gain more widespread appeal – and that 20-year estimate is a relatively conservative one.

If Bitcoin use gathers pace at the speed that emerging technologies like…