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Preying on the poor? Opportunities and challenges for tackling the social and environmental threats of cryptocurrencies for vulnerable and low-income communities
Abstract
The rate of adoption of some cryptocurrencies is triggering alarm from energy researchers and social scientists concerned about the industry’s growing environmental and social impacts. In this paper we argue that the unsustainable trajectory of some cryptocurrencies disproportionately impacts poor and vulnerable communities where cryptocurrency producers and other actors take advantage of economic instabilities, weak regulations, and access to cheap energy and other resources. Globally, over 100 million people hold cryptocurrency, mostly as a speculative asset. The digital infrastructure behind the most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin, currently requires as much energy as the whole of Thailand, with a carbon footprint exceeding the gold mining industry. Should bitcoin’s mass adoption continue, an escalating climate crisis is inevitable, disproportionately exacerbating social and environmental challenges for communities already experiencing multiple dimensions of deprivation. In mitigating these impacts, the paper considers 4 potential regulatory pathways, including: 1) promoting voluntary private-sector commitments to using only renewable energy, 2) encouraging a system of voluntary carbon offsetting, 3) using existing financial regulations and tax frameworks, and 4) imposing national and/or international bans on cryptocurrency ‘mining’. The paper argues that effective environmental regulation of cryptocurrencies is urgently required, both to reduce the threat of catastrophic climate change, and to help the world’s poorest towards sustainable development. However, regulating cryptocurrency mining in any context is likely to require a combination of efforts and is unlikely to result in win-win outcomes for all.
... Similar stories are reported from Iran, where officials partially blamed Bitcoin mining for power outages in Tehran and other large cities [195]. Howson and de Vries [196] emphasize that it is often low-income communities that experience the detrimental effects of Bitcoin mining and conflicts over resources. They provide the example of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where bitcoin miners outcompete locals when it comes to accessing cheap energy. ...
... Howson and de Vries [196], Rustgi [197] Inefficiency, opportunity costs, alternative uses Swanson [198], Squires [199] ...
... Howson and de Vries [196] consider four pathways, namely: the voluntary commitment of the private sector to use only renewable energy; a system of voluntary carbon offsetting; the application of existing financial regulation and tax frameworks; and finally, the globally coordinated ban of cryptocurrency mining. The authors conclude that the fourth option is likely to be the most effective. ...
The energy use of Bitcoin is fiercely debated among academics, practitioners, and the general public. This debate is often biased and characterized by a lack of understanding. Therefore, I start this paper with a discussion of the fundamentals of Bitcoin, which includes the clarification of widely held misconceptions. Next, I illustrate how Bitcoin is related to energy and describe the underlying incentive mechanism. In the main body of the paper I discuss various components of Bitcoin’s energy use, including the amount, composition, and geographical distribution of the energy, as well as emerging positive and negative effects. These components are then combined into a comprehensive framework that provides a solid foundation for future academic research and presents practitioners with the big picture of how and why Bitcoin requires energy and whether this can be justified from an environmental point of view.
... The government has a crucial role in accomplishing the enormous potential benefits of fostering energy-efficient cryptocurrencies. Regulating the cryptocurrency industry with potential regulatory mechanisms can help lower Bitcoin's energy consumption (Howson and de Vries, 2022) and, at the same time, can provide the liberty to investors to keep investing in a greener way. The miners may be encouraged to use energy from renewable sources; taxing the miners who use non-renewable energy or rebates for miners using renewable power to mine Bitcoins can be provided by the policymakers (Howson and de Vries, 2022). ...
... Regulating the cryptocurrency industry with potential regulatory mechanisms can help lower Bitcoin's energy consumption (Howson and de Vries, 2022) and, at the same time, can provide the liberty to investors to keep investing in a greener way. The miners may be encouraged to use energy from renewable sources; taxing the miners who use non-renewable energy or rebates for miners using renewable power to mine Bitcoins can be provided by the policymakers (Howson and de Vries, 2022). ...
Purpose
While Blockchain can serve us, Bitcoin threatens our survival. If Bitcoin is assumed to be a country, it will rank 38th globally for energy consumption. With 90.2 metric million tonnes of carbon dioxide, Bitcoin mining and trading has emerged as an environmental threat. The current study investigates how the trading-specific variables, the prices of Crypto Index and Ethereum, affect bitcoin-based energy consumption. Also, the role of mining-specific variables is analyzed.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses monthly data from various sources collected from December 2018 to January 2023. The authors used the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Model to determine the short- and long-term relationships between variables. This study uses the Theory of Green Marketing and the Theory of Cross Elasticity of Demand as a theoretical lens.
Findings
The findings show that escalating crypto market index and Ethereum prices with a one-month lag increases bitcoin-specific electricity consumption and carbon emissions. Green investors may shift to cryptocurrencies based on consensus other than of Proof-of-Work. Ethereum behaves like a substitute for Bitcoin, reflected by the long-term positive relationship between Bitcoin's energy consumption and Ethereum prices.
Originality/value
The study analyses how the crypto market index and Ethereum price affect bitcoin-based energy use. The relationships identified are substantiated by the literature to provide suggestions to green investors and policymakers to mitigate the harmful impact of Bitcoin's colossal energy consumption on the natural environment.
... Data analysis and testing ) proved that the estimated electricity for Monero may consume 645.62 GWh of electricity globally in a single year following the hard split. Since previous studies show that electricity consumption has a direct and positive relationship with CO2 emissions Goodkind et al. 2020;Howson and de Vries 2022), it may likely contribute to carbon emissions ranging between 19.12 and 19.42 thousand tons per year . ...
... Data analysis and testing ) proved that the estimated electricity for Monero may consume 645.62 GWh of electricity globally in a single year following the hard split. Since previous studies show that electricity consumption has a direct and positive relationship with CO 2 emissions Goodkind et al. 2020;Howson and de Vries 2022), it may likely contribute to carbon emissions ranging between 19.12 and 19.42 thousand tons per year ). ...
Blockchain technology is being looked at to solve numerous real-world problems that demand transparency by meeting sustainable goals. Do we ponder whether this technology is a boon or a bane for the environment? This paper analyses blockchain’s dominant consensus method, Proof-of-Work (PoW), which consumes more energy than Malaysia and Sweden and further deteriorates the environment through carbon emissions. This study is the first systematic evaluation of PoW consensus-based blockchain applications’ environmental consequences. We found 11 significant Theories, 6 Contexts, and 26 Methodologies (TCM) in 60 reviewed articles. We propose an Antecedents, Drivers, and Outcomes (ADO) model, which depicts that marginal profits drive high energy consumption and carbon emissions, with non-renewable energy proportionally responsible for carbon emissions. The article distinctively uses an integrated TCM-ADO framework for literature synthesis and the PESTLE framework for reporting future research areas. This is the first study to use the following four frameworks: PRISMA; TCM; ADO; and PESTLE for systematic literature review. Profit is identified as one of the most significant drivers of energy consumption and further carbon emissions. The article proposes 65 future research areas and makes theoretical contributions to the literature that may interest academicians, practitioners, and social stakeholders.
... In the process of relative poverty data governance using blockchain technology, it is encrypted through Paillier encryption scheme, which is an asymmetric algorithm based on public key cryptosystem. The scheme includes three steps as follows: Key Generation (KeyGen), Encryption (Enc), and Decryption (Dec) [21,22]. ...
... γ h means the threshold of the hth neuron in the hidden layer; v ih refers to the connection weight between the ith neuron in the input layer and the h neuron in the hidden layer. The expression of e h in Equations (21) and (22) are as follows: ...
It aims at exploring the effect of coordinated relative poverty governance in rural areas based on blockchain and back propagation (BP) neural network, so that the living standard of rural areas can be significantly improved. In view of the shortcomings and defects existing in the rural relative poverty governance, artificial intelligence technologies such as blockchain and neural network are innovatively introduced to conduct intelligent storage and data visualization analysis on the rural relative poverty governance process. A visualized governance and mechanism innovation model of rural relative poverty data based on blockchain and BP neural network is constructed. Finally, its performance is analyzed through experiments. The results show that the accuracy of data visualization prediction of the proposed algorithm model reaches 94.31%. When the amount of data is 5.5 Mb, the calculation consumption of the proposed algorithm is 0.08 s, and the average leakage rate finally stabilizes below 10%. Therefore, the constructed poverty data visualization governance model can achieve good data transmission security performance while ensuring high classification accuracy. It can provide experimental basis and contribution for the intelligent development and mechanism innovation of rural relative poverty governance.
... Bitcoin's carbon footprint is comparable to that of Ireland [10], and Mora et al. [11] confirm that the estimated CO2 emissions from Bitcoin could make the globe warmer by 2 °C. Howson [12] expresses concern about the carbon footprint of Bitcoin, while Krause and Tolaymat [10] show that the mining of 4 cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Monero) generated 3-15 million tonnes of CO2 emissions over the period 1st January 2016 to 30th June 2018. Sedlmeir [13] points to the huge energy consumption of blockchains, especially on the basis of the number of transactions they operate. ...
... We used daily data from the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index (BECI) over the period 25 February 2017 to 25 January 2022, according to the data availability from Digiconomist. BECI data have been recently used in academia [12,17]. They consist of daily data covering three series, BECI upper bound (BECI UB), BECI lower bound (BECI LB), and BECI average. ...
The Bitcoin mining process is energy intensive, which can hamper the much-desired ecological balance. Given that the persistence of high levels of energy consumption of Bitcoin could have permanent policy implications, we examine the presence of long memory in the daily data of the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index (BECI) (BECI upper bound, BECI lower bound, and BECI average) covering the period 25 February 2017 to 25 January 2022. Employing fractionally integrated GARCH (FIGARCH) and multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MFDFA) models to estimate the order of fractional integrating parameter and compute the Hurst exponent, which measures long memory, this study shows that distant series observations are strongly autocorrelated and long memory exists in most cases, although mean-reversion is observed at the first difference of the data series. Such evidence for the profound presence of long memory suggests the suitability of applying permanent policies regarding the use of alternate energy for mining; otherwise, transitory policy would quickly become obsolete. We also suggest the replacement of 'proof-of-work' with 'proof-of-space' or 'proof-of-stake', although with a trade-off (possible security breach) to reduce the carbon footprint, the implementation of direct tax on mining volume, or the mandatory use of carbon credits to restrict the environmental damage.
... In recent years, alongside the meteoric rise and adoption of cryptocurrencies, there has been growing discourse concerning their ecological implications. The decentralized nature of these digital assets, while groundbreaking in many respects, has also been a source of concern from an environmental standpoint [13]. Cryptocurrency operations, especially those utilizing energy-intensive consensus algorithms like Proof of Work, have been linked to significant energy consumption, often sourced from non-renewable power plants, resulting in substantial carbon footprints. ...
Since their inception with Bitcoin in the late 2000s, cryptocurrencies have grown exponentially, reshaping traditional financial paradigms. This transformative journey, while innovative, brings forth pressing concerns about their energy consumption and carbon footprint. While many studies tend to zoom in on Bitcoin, this paper broadens the perspective by evaluating energy consumption across various cryptocurrencies. We analyze nine cryptocurrency projects, chosen for their market value, technology, and data availability. These span a spectrum from pioneering to emerging digital coins, offering a holistic view of the crypto realm. To contextualize, we juxtapose the energy usage of these digital currencies with traditional payment means like Visa and Mastercard. Our analysis shows vast differences in energy use among cryptocurrencies, largely tied to their consensus algorithms. Notably, while Bitcoin stands out as highly energy-intensive, several newer digital currencies have energy footprints mirroring those of conventional payment methods. Additionally, CO2 emissions estimation presents challenges due to variances in miner locations and regional energy sources, with potential higher emissions if concentrated in carbon-intensive regions like China. Nonetheless, the silver lining emerges as many cryptocurrencies, especially those beyond Bitcoin, register considerably lower CO2 emissions. By moving the lens beyond Bitcoin, this paper paints a more nuanced picture of the environmental ramifications of the crypto world.
... The pervasive diffusion and adoption of connected devices and energy-intensive systems (like blockchain) has indeed shifted consumption patterns, with an often overlooked effects on the environment (Howson and de Vries, 2022). Overall demand of electricity will be increasingly driven by the production and application of smart technologies, with related energy accounting for 20 percent of global demand by 2030. ...
The growing attention to digital sustainability can arguably be linked to climate change and digital transformations as major megatrends rapidly altering our collective present and future. The current Russian-Ukrainian war and the recent pandemic, however, have both raised uncertainty over the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) achievement and the role of technology and innovation for sustainability. Without ignoring the dramatic consequences for people, the Ukrainian war can be deemed as a significant shift in geopolitics and global energy policies, with a short-term return to fossil fuel and commitments to renewable and clean energy transitions. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst for a more pervasive diffusion and adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) transforming our lives and notions of sustainability. By considering the disruptive impact triggered by the pandemic, this paper aims at advancing awareness and knowledge of digital sustainability and at drawing a coherent framework of arguments including ethical and epistemological issues, taking into account the approach of complexity science. This will be essentially carried out by considering digital sustainability as “the convergence of digital and sustainability imperatives that involves a trans-disciplinary approach of deploying digital technologies in tackling sustainability issues” (Pan and Zhang, 2020). Across different interpretations reflected within business and management debates (Sharma, et al., 2021), this definition gives meaning to the concept or construct by specifying operations that must be performed in order to measure or manipulate the concept (Berrío-Zapata, et al., 2021). This paper will focus on the profound transformations of our view of reality by ICTs acting as instrumentarian technologies, and the need to avoid determinism, rethink science-technology relations, and consider the distributed morality of multi-agent ecosystems as significant aspects to further a debate on the trans-disciplinary nature of digital sustainability, including the potential negative impacts of digital technologies on society, economy and environment.
... Various estimations have been published on energy consumption by Bitcoin, which reflect the uncertainty of these evaluations. For instance, it was claimed that more energy is used for Bitcoin mining than mining gold [4] . This was equal to energy consumption of Switzerland [5] all the world's energy by 2010 [6] . ...
An unprecedented emergence has occurred for the cryptocurrencies among enterprises, customers, and investors as a result of the growing number of internet connections worldwide. The most popular cryptocurrency is Bitcoin representing the rise of digital payment systems. Though, harsh criticism has been also created for cryptocurrencies about their environmental sustainability and power consumption, decelerating the acceptance of bitcoin by consumer as a means of payment. The ecological impact or footprint of a process is determined mainly through life-cycle-assessment (LCA) quantifying all material flows’ inputs and outputs for a process or product and their effect on the environment. This study provides LCA-based framework to show the environmental impacts of Bitcoin mining from top ten miner countries (China, USA, Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran, Malaysia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Norway). The results show that with the share of 53.3% of the world’s mining, China has the most negative environmental impact specially in marine ecotoxicity with 26.8 kg 1,4-DCB and human health with 0.0043 DALY but with the equal mining ratio Germany and Kazakhstan have the most negative environmental impacts.
... For example, Puerto Rico, a jurisdiction under direct colonial rule by the United States, has been subjected to policies of austerity imposed by unelected officials and institutions and pushed to relax its tax framework to attract investors from the cryptocurrency industry. Economic instability, inadequate tax policy and regulatory frameworks are also encouraging increased levels of adoption in countries with the least resilience towards economic shocks (Howson and de Vries, 2022). ...
This article examines how cryptocurrencies are increasingly entangled with crises in Latin American political discourse and everyday economic life. In an effort of interdisciplinary integration, combining human geography with political economy and cultural anthropology, we critically assess the linkages between cryptocurrency, economic crisis and forms of political and economic precarity and exploitation. Drawing on experiences in Latin America, mostly on the cases of El Salvador and Venezuela, we explore how cryptocurrencies have rapidly emerged and expanded during periods of economic and political crises. We ground this discussion on social theories of money and critical analysis of blockchain and cryptocurrencies that question the apolitical assumptions of these apparent "trustless" infrastructures. The article contends that cryptocurrencies have the capacity to create potential niches for makeshift economic survival, speculation and quick profit, while at the same time reproducing historical conditions of vulnerability, inequality and 'crypto-colonialism'. Though cryptocurrencies are surrounded by stories of freedom and decentralised community control, our ethnographic data on El Salvador and Venezuela suggest they often rely on free market fundamentalism and conditions of political corruption by authoritarian state-backed elites. Mineros pobres y billeteras electrónicas vacías: experiencias latinoamericanas con criptomonedas en crisis Resumen Este artículo examina cómo las criptomonedas están cada vez más enredadas con las crisis en el discurso político latinoamer-icano y la vida económica cotidiana. En un esfuerzo de integración interdisciplinaria, combinando la geografía humana con la economía política y la antropología cultural, evaluamos críticamente los vínculos entre las criptomonedas, la crisis económica y las formas de precariedad y explotación política y económica. Basándonos en experiencias en América Latina, principal-mente en los casos de El Salvador y Venezuela, exploramos cómo las criptomonedas han surgido y se han expandido rápidamente durante períodos de crisis económica y política. Basamos esta discusión en las teorías sociales del dinero y el análisis crítico de blockchain y las criptomonedas que cuestionan los supuestos apolíticos de estas aparentes infraestructuras "sin confianza". El artículo sostiene que las criptomonedas tienen la capacidad de crear nichos potenciales para la/home/hug supervivencia económica improvisada, la especulación y las ganancias rápidas, al mismo tiempo que reproducen condiciones históricas de vulnerabilidad, desigualdad y "criptocolonialismo". Aunque las criptomonedas están rodeadas de historias de lib-ertad y control comunitario descentralizado, nuestros datos etnográficos sobre El Salvador y Venezuela sugieren que a menudo se basan en el fundamentalismo del libre mercado y las condiciones de corrupción política de las élites autoritarias respaldadas por el estado.
... Similarly, digital assets such as cryptocurrencies have been developing rapidly and have been recognized as important assets by individual and institutional investors. However, many carbon emissions generated in the process of adopting cryptocurrency are causing environmental problems such as global warming and e-waste [4][5][6][7]. Accordingly, cryptocurrencies have received considerable criticism for environmental problems, and green(eco-friendly) cryptocurrencies have been developed as an alternative. To circumvent such criticism, green cryptocurrencies use renewable energy, such as solar, hydroelectric, and wind, in the mining process. ...
Are green investments decoupled from the dirty investment such as the fossil fuel markets? We address this issue by extending the literature on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) assets by examining the dynamic relationship between fossil fuels and digital ESG assets proxied by green cryptocurrencies using the TVP-VAR(Time-varying parameter vector auto regression) spillover framework. Furthermore, we analyze the hedging attributes of green cryptocurrencies and fossil fuels in a minimum connectedness framework. The main findings are as follows: First, green cryptocurrencies are the main shock transmitters in all asset systems. Second, the dynamic connectedness between green cryptocurrencies and fossil fuels increased during the COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine conflicts. Third, green cryptocurrencies have shown considerable hedging effectiveness against the fossil fuels. Our study has important implications for investors, regulators, and policy makers, such as shifting to green cryptocurrencies, regulation of carbon footprint, and promoting eco-friendly assets.
... Third, cryptocurrencies will attract more green bonds and green funds by influencing investor sentiment. The high consumption and carbon emissions of bitcoin mean that investments in these cryptocurrencies will face greater climate risks in the long run (Howson and de Vries 2022). Because of the high environmental benefits of green funds and green bonds, these instruments have served as a diversified vehicle in portfolios of risk aversion (Le et al. 2021). ...
This paper discusses the dynamic long- and short-term effects of bitcoin price (BTP), crude oil price (COP), and uncertainty of economic policy (EPU) on China’s green bond (CGB) market, separately. Depending on the quantile autoregressive distributed lag method, the empirical results are shown that BTP and EPU exert substantial positive and negative effects on the CGB market in the long term for most circumstances, while their effects reflect not prominent in the short term. The main contributions can be summarized as follows. Given that China is the largest bitcoin mining state and a major green bond issuer, this study first explores the linkages between them. Furthermore, both long- and short-term effects are investigated from BTP, COP, and EPU to CGB, and long-term effects are dominated in the interrelationships among variables, indicating that the CGB market is mainly driven by permanent shocks. In addition, the mentioned long-term effects are deeply discussed from time- and quantile-varying aspects. This approach considers diverse situations in the bond market and various incidents that occur at various durations of time. The results underscore the significance of market participants gaining a deeper comprehension of how BTP, COP, and EPU impact green bond within varying market conditions. Implementing specific policies, such as establishing a cohesive and efficient bond market and making careful adjustments to economic policies, can be advantageous in maintaining stability within the CGB market.
... Largely, the global environmental targets are feasible only if policy and actions possess greater consideration for human activity that exacerbates environmental poor quality Can et al., 2021aCan et al., , 2021b. This is because, unquestionably, socio-economic activities are at the helm of global environmental challenges (Howson and de Vries, 2022). Economic growth activities provide immense economic and environmental benefits to economies. ...
The degrowth approach posits the idea that sustainable development and economic expansion are mutually exclusive. Conversely, it is believed that international trade within a complex economic system can help distribute green products to simultaneously ensure economic expansion and sustainable development. For this reason, the dynamic ARDL simulations technique was adopted to analyze the German economy's data from 2000 to 2020 toward determining the specific and interactive ecological implications of international green openness and economic complexity in Europe's largest economy. We discovered that green openness and economic complexity each have desirable impacts on ecofootprint, and their interaction further confirms a strong ecological-enhancing synergistic effect. The presence of the EKC phenomenon was also upheld from the analysis while clean energy exerts a positive impact on Germany's environmental quality level. The study further posits that a faster shift into the manufacture of technology-intensive and environmentally friendly products is possible for nations that invest in strengthening their internal technological skills to curb ecological harm. It is therefore advocated that even if the manufacturing of green items is not optimally done domestically, the special opportunities presented by international trade in the distribution of green products should always be leveraged to foster environmental sustainability.
... Vries and Stoll [23] propose a novel method to evaluate bitcoin's e-waste, discovering that it will add up to 30.7 metric kilotons per year by May 2021. Howson and Vries [24] state that the digital infrastructure behind bitcoin (the most popular cryptocurrency) requires as much energy as the entire country of Thailand, which causes an aggravated climate crisis. Jana et al. [5] point out that bitcoin mining, hosted in a blockchain network, could consume considerable energy and generate e-waste at alarming rates. ...
Investigating the essential impact of the cryptocurrency market on carbon emissions is significant for the U.S. to realize carbon neutrality. This exploration employs low-frequency vector auto-regression (LF-VAR) and mixed-frequency VAR (MF-VAR) models to capture the complicated interrelationship between cryptocurrency policy uncertainty (CPU) and carbon emission (CE) and to answer the question of whether cryptocurrency policy uncertainty could facilitate U.S. carbon neutrality. By comparison, the MF-VAR model possesses a higher explanatory power than the LF-VAR model; the former’s impulse response indicates a negative CPU effect on CE, suggesting that cryptocurrency policy uncertainty is a promoter for the U.S. to realize the goal of carbon neutrality. In turn, CE positively impacts CPU, revealing that mass carbon emissions would raise public and national concerns about the environmental damages caused by cryptocurrency transactions and mining. Furthermore, CPU also has a mediation effect on CE; that is, CPU could affect CE through the oil price (OP). In the context of a more uncertain cryptocurrency market, valuable insights for the U.S. could be offered to realize carbon neutrality by reducing the traditional energy consumption and carbon emissions of cryptocurrency trading and mining.
... With more energy consumption, the carbon emissions are bound to increase as this energy is most of the time powered through non-renewable resources like coal, natural gas etc. Many previous studies show that electricity consumption has a direct and positive relationship with CO2 emissions Goodkind et al., 2020;Howson & De Vries, 2022;Krause & Tolaymat, 2018). To drive the agenda of sustainability, it is important to gauge and understand the dynamics of market determined bitcoin price and the carbon emissions as a by product of mining the energy intensive cryptos like bitcoin, Ethereum etc. ...
Because of the large amount of energy, they require to run, the Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain applications are currently a source of worry due to their carbon footprint. The current study investigates how the price of bitcoin, which is a Proof-of-Work application, affects the amount of energy that is required to mine bitcoin. Because the use of energy results in carbon emission that is dependent on the kind of resource that is used for the generation of energy, we make an effort to estimate the carbon footprint that such an influence has. For the purpose of this study, monthly data from the Bloomberg database were collected and used starting in August 2017 and continuing through July 2022. In order to determine the link that exists between the variables, we employed the ARDL approach. We had sixty observations at our disposal, and the variables came from a range of integration orders. According to the findings, an increase in the price of bitcoin leads to an increase in the amount of energy that is consumed when mining bitcoin, which further increases the amount of carbon emissions. This study helps to illustrate how an increase in the market-driven price of bitcoin as a crypto asset may result in a larger carbon footprint from bitcoin mining.
... The design of the Bitcoin mining system and its growing need for energy point to a fast-growing problem for the business and technology world (de Vries, 2020;Gallersdörfer et al., 2020;Howson and de Vries, 2022;Vranken, 2017). The high costs associated with Bitcoin mining trigger research to explore the future of the required energy for mining and, even more importantly, the sustainability of the mining industry which depends on this energy. ...
Blockchain technology revolutionized the financial system with the emergence of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin as the most used cryptocurrency has been particularly questioned in the literature for its sustainability. Very few studies explore the future of sustainability from the perspective of both miners' and technology makers' continual profitability. Our study evaluates the hardware used for Bitcoin mining from a sustainability analysis perspective; therefore, changes in the difficulty level in the block algorithm and mining hardware's thermal power usage are considered to determine the profitability and the exergetic efficiency of the mining process. The consistent decay in exergetic efficiency curves of several GPU and ASIC-based technology hardware suggest that the hardware can be utilized up to the levels where the efficiency values hit zero. Simultaneously, the diminishing profit levels over the course of changing Bitcoin prices make the mining hardware unsustainable signaling an end to its life cycle and switching the hardware with more efficient ones. Our findings shed light on the future of the sustainability of Bitcoin mining in terms of securing the profitability of the business by determining the exergetic efficiency of the hardware with a completely new perspective in the literature.
... Furthermore, there is the general view that as a medium of exchange and its widespread availability, it may make it more accessible to people in need. Especially when it comes to impoverished people, their access to the conventional banking system is typically limited, making a solution utilizing blockchain an attractive alternative to empower and support them (Howson & de Vries, 2022). When it comes to contracting, these contracts are based on smart contracts utilizing blockchain technology, which is both secure and automated. ...
The metaverse in China has become of paramount importance within the last several years, being a virtual universe where individuals and companies can interact. While the metaverses are still nascent, there has been increasing interest and capital inflow into these universes. For Shariah-compliant focused financial investors and participants, this represents a considerable challenge given the existing lack of Islamic financing frameworks for the metaverses. We discuss the current regulations in China related to metaverses and then outline new frameworks for providing Shariah-compliant financing in the metaverse, outlining the challenges and aspects that must be taken into account for creating Shariah-compliant financing forms in the metaverse within the Chinese legal environment. The framework adapts conventional Islamic financing options, such as Murabaha and Sukuk, to the metaverse, ensuring that both the contracting and crypto-payments are Shariah-compliant and supportive in the metaverse, as well as aligned with Chinese regulations. The framework provides an important step toward the development of Shariah-compliant financing forms within the metaverse.
... Howson and de Vries suggest that because of the volatility, poor and vulnerable communities are disproportionately affected. As well, there are other actors who have taken advantage of economic instabilities, weak regulations, and access to cheap energy to mine Bitcoin, often impacting local access to energy [32]. ...
Despite the climate commitments made by countries in the Paris Climate Agreement adopted in 2015 and reinforced during COP 21 and with notably less success during COP 22, world carbon emissions increased in both 2021 and 2022. It is increasingly unlikely that the world will achieve the targeted 50% carbon reduction by 2030, the reduction approximately needed for reducing global temperature rise since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to less than 1.5 deg. C. At the same time, there remain nearly 2 billion people in the world who have no or highly unreliable access to power. In developed countries, access to both clean energy and energy efficiency investment in residences within low to moderate income communities has also lagged. This paper provides a review of the “Productive Use of Energy (PUE)”, which is a means to add value to solar energy mini- and micro-grids to ensure investment worthiness and add more value to the communities being served. In this context, it posits an opportunity to leverage Bitcoin mining as a common PUE strategy applicable to new solar installations. Several actual pilot cases are described to demonstrate this potential throughout the world and at multiple scales. These include: (i) existing micro-grids with significant stranded energy to generate income that could be used to reduce the cost per kWh for the community; (ii) new solar micro-grids optimized to meet community load and mining operations; (iii) dedicated solar-powered Bitcoin mining mini-grids developed solely to create a funding stream for self-investment by communities for their benefit; and (iv) a low-income residential solar-powered Bitcoin miner to reduce the energy cost burden for residents. Several of these scenarios show significant potential to aid investment worthiness.
... Furthermore, there is the general view that as a medium of exchange and its widespread availability, it may make it more accessible to people in need. Especially when it comes to impoverished people, their access to the conventional banking system is typically limited, making a solution utilizing blockchain an attractive alternative to empower and support them (Howson & de Vries, 2022). When it comes to contracting, these contracts are based on smart contracts utilizing blockchain technology, which is both secure and automated. ...
The metaverse has become of paramount importance within the last several years, being a virtual universe where individuals and companies can interact. While the metaverses are still in their nascent stage, there has been increasing interest and capital inflow into these universes. For Shariah-compliant focused financial investors and participants, this represents a considerable challenge given the existing lack of Islamic financing frameworks for the metaverses. This chapter outlines options for providing Shariah-compliant financing in the metaverse, outlining the challenges and aspects that have to be taken into account for creating Shariah-compliant financing forms in the metaverse. The framework adapts conventional Islamic financing options, such as Murabaha and Sukuk, to the metaverse, ensuring that both the contracting and crypto-payments are Shariah-compliant and supportive in the metaverse. The framework provides an important step towards the development of Shariah-compliant financing forms within the metaverse.
... Furthermore, there is the general view that as a medium of exchange and its widespread availability, it may make it more accessible to people in need. Especially when it comes to impoverished people, their access to the conventional banking system is typically limited, making a solution utilizing blockchain an attractive alternative to empower and support them (Howson & de Vries, 2022). When it comes to contracting, these contracts are based on smart contracts utilizing blockchain technology, which is both secure and automated. ...
The metaverse has become of paramount importance within the last several years, being a virtual universe where individuals and companies can interact. While the metaverses are still in their nascent stage, there has been increasing interest and capital inflow into these universes. For Shariah-compliant focused financial investors and participants, this represents a considerable challenge given the existing lack of Islamic financing frameworks for the metaverses. We have outlined new frameworks for providing Shariah-compliant financing in the metaverse, outlining the challenges and aspects that have to be taken into account for creating Shariah-compliant financing forms in the metaverse. The framework adapts conventional Islamic financing options, such as Murabaha and Sukuk, to the metaverse, ensuring that both the contracting and crypto-payments are Shariah-compliant and supportive in the metaverse. The framework provides an important step towards the development of Shariah-compliant financing forms within the metaverse.
Bu makale kripto paraların oluşturduğu çevresel etkileri, makroekonomik ilişkileri ve suç üzerindeki unsurları ortaya çıkarmayı hedeflemektedir. Kripto para madenciliği için gerekli olan enerjinin zamanla çevre kirliliğine daha da fazla sebep olduğu ve iklime daha fazla zarar verdiği; kripto paraların çevresel ayak izlerinin dünyanın geleceği için tehlikeli bir noktaya ulaşabileceği düşünülmektedir. Madencilik esnasında daha az enerjiye ihtiyaç duyulan farklı sistemlerin geliştirilebileceği, yenilenebilir enerji kaynaklarından elde edilen enerjinin, kamu enerji tüketiminin düşük olduğu saatlerde kripto madencilik sistemi için açılabileceği göz önünde bulundurulmalıdır. Ekonomiler üzerindeki olumsuz etkilerini azaltmak için kripto paralar üretilirken denetlenebilecek, vergi kaybının önüne geçilebilecek ve tüketici/yatırımcı ihtiyaçlarına hitap edebilecek bir yaklaşımla hareket edilmesi gerekmektedir. Devletlerin etkili bir yasal düzenlemesinin olmaması nedeniyle kripto paralar kara para aklama, uyuşturucu-silah-insan kaçakçılığının ve terör eylemlerinin finansmanı için kullanılabilmektedir. Bu nedenle tüm ülkelerin süratle kripto paralar ile ilgili yasal mevzuatlarını oluşturmaları ve karaborsa işlemlerini yasaklamaları, küresel Bitcoin (BTC) denetimini düzenlenmeleri elzemdir.
The era of digital money was introduced years ago and is rising over the last few years. This is implemented by the fast-growing globalization process that spreads new technologies all over the world. Even in underdeveloped African nations such as Nigeria, this article examines the emergence of digital currencies such as Bitcoin. The ways that payments are made have changed significantly on a worldwide scale. This article suggests that the development of digital currencies, and Bitcoin in particular, is part of the process of instituting globalization through digital technologies. This article analyzes the phenomenon of Bitcoin in Nigeria from a neoliberal perspective, where globalization serves as a catalyst for the liberalization process. This article employs methods based on qualitative research. We use qualitative data obtained from previous studies, literature, and news source that is searched through google. According to this article, Bitcoin usage in Nigeria has increased due to increased investment. Nigeria that undergoes an economic crisis adopt Bitcoin in hopes for a better economic situation which resulted in the government accepting neoliberalism system. This article focuses on how underdeveloped nations use Bitcoin in international commerce to attract investment. Bitcoin has aided people in investing and improving their standard of living which is consistent with the neoliberal viewpoint; those who have control over their resources and act int their best interests will prevail.
div> The speed of the adoption and use of cryptocurrency that utilizes blockchain technology as its central infrastructure is expanding globally, including in Indonesia. It has promising prospects as a future asset and payment instrument. However, the regulations in Indonesia are often delayed and inadequate for dealing with cryptocurrency's developments. This research is intended to analyze the approaches, regulations, and protection of the use of cryptocurrency. This study argues that the regulatory approach to using cryptocurrency is balanced, while Indonesia has a partial status in cryptocurrency legality. The government’s protection of cryptocurrency investors is adequate in using cryptocurrency as a commodity traded on futures exchanges with a license from Bappebti . A progressive policy for establishing the Digital Asset Law by the government is important due to the resultant clarity in the regulatory status of cryptocurrency will allow the ecosystem to grow and promote innovation, thus harnessing the benefits of cryptocurrency while mitigating related risks.
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Bitcoin is considered the first and largest crypto currency with a blockchain system of recording transactions on thousands of machines at once enabling peer to peer transfer. There is no doubt that Bitcoin has received strong attention from the real world. Its innovative concept, reliable technology and advantages in application attract many people's attention. But Bitcoin has also brought many negative effects. To provide an organized response to the question around the potential benefits and harms of using Bitcoin, we designed an Impact Index comparing the impact from both sides of this topic. We found that the impact of the curses (negatives) is significantly bigger than the impact for benefits. However, more advanced technology, more regulated approach and changes in payment and financing methods may become the savior of Bitcoin.
Digital fashion is a multidisciplinary field, and the technological innovations that are making it possible can be clustered under following four themes: (1) digital design and e-prototyping, (2) digital business and promotion, (3) digital human and metaverse, and (4) phygital apparel and smart wearable technology. The technical areas associated with these four themes are further explored in this chapter, and descriptive snapshots of the state-of-the-art developments are presented.
Digital fashion is a multidisciplinary field, and the technological innovations that are making it possible can be clustered under following four themes: (1) digital design and e-prototyping, (2) digital business and promotion, (3) digital human and metaverse, and (4) phygital apparel and smart wearable technology. The technical areas associated with these four themes are further explored in this chapter, and descriptive snapshots of the state-of-the-art developments are presented.
This paper examines the causal interactions between energy consumption due to cryptocurrency mining activity and electricity return and volatility patterns across the power markets in the U.S., U.K. and Europe. We find that the effect is heterogeneous across the different power markets examined, while the effect of mining activity is consistently focused on return volatility. Accordingly, our findings provide robust evidence of the volatility effects of mining activity in power markets, suggesting that the crypto mining-power market nexus primarily entails risk effects, an issue of particular concern for hedgers whose goal is to stabilize energy costs in their operations.
Cryptocurrencies have been attracting a significant amount of attention in the world since they were first launched in 2009. Pretending to be a decentralized finance solution, it brought out a new era in technology called blockchain. Even though the benefits did not come into action in daily routines for many to be aware of, the market and its variety kept growing. On the other hand, there are also a lot of concerns and unpredictability about the future of this technology. Especially the high energy consumption while generating blocks for mining cryptocurrencies and completing transactions is commonly being criticised. In this study, blockchain technology and the basics of mining and validation procedures such as proof of work (PoW) and proof of stake (PoS) processes will be explained, and the environmental effects of bitcoin mining will be investigated. In the perspective of environmental sustainability of cryptocurrencies, the improvement in usage of renewable energy and its side benefits will be overviewed for a better prediction on the blockchain technology future.
With the control of the cryptocurrency market in environmental protection, investors pay attention to the risk conduction mechanism between energy consumption and the Bitcoin market. This paper applies quantile connectedness to analyse the overall situation and dynamic evolution of information spillover in the system of the Bitcoin market. The results show that the hashrate and electricity demand are the primary sources of risk in the information network, and their fluctuations have intensified the risk spillover effects in the system. In addition, the spillover level is more prominent in extreme cases, which means the information linkage in the system is integrated. The spillover effect of each variable fluctuates and is uncertain with time. This helps in the sustainable development of Bitcoin and guides the government's policy development and supervision of cryptocurrencies. The risk infection path helps prevent the risk of infection in the Bitcoin market and improves the sustainability of the encrypted market.
Bitcoin’s increasing energy consumption has triggered a passionate debate about the sustainability of the digital currency. And yet, most studies have thus far ignored that Bitcoin miners cycle through a growing amount of short-lived hardware that could exacerbate the growth in global electronic waste. E-waste represents a growing threat to our environment, from toxic chemicals and heavy metals leaching into soils, to air and water pollutions caused by improper recycling. Here we present a methodology to estimate Bitcoin’s e-waste and find that it adds up to 30.7 metric kilotons per annum, per May 2021. This number is comparable to the amount of small IT and telecommunication equipment waste produced by a country like the Netherlands. At peak Bitcoin price levels seen early in 2021, the annual amount of e-waste may grow beyond 64.4 metric kilotons in the midterm, which highlights the dynamic trend if the Bitcoin price rises further. Moreover, the demand for mining hardware already today disrupts the global semiconductor supply chain. The strategies we present may help to mitigate Bitcoin’s growing e-waste problem.
The digital currency Bitcoin is known for its energy hunger and associated carbon footprint. Investors, how-ever, must not neglect further environmental, social, and governance issues related to digital currencies. Therefore, we urge the adoption of a more comprehensive view in assessing the externalities of investments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The growing energy consumption and associated carbon emission of Bitcoin mining could potentially undermine global sustainable efforts. By investigating carbon emission flows of Bitcoin blockchain operation in China with a simulation-based Bitcoin blockchain carbon emission model, we find that without any policy interventions, the annual energy consumption of the Bitcoin blockchain in China is expected to peak in 2024 at 296.59 Twh and generate 130.50 million metric tons of carbon emission correspondingly. Internationally, this emission output would exceed the total annualized greenhouse gas emission output of the Czech Republic and Qatar. Domestically, it ranks in the top 10 among 182 cities and 42 industrial sectors in China. In this work, we show that moving away from the current punitive carbon tax policy to a site regulation policy which induces changes in the energy consumption structure of the mining activities is more effective in limiting carbon emission of Bitcoin blockchain operation.
As the price of Bitcoin rises, the negatively externalities associated with Bitcoin mining increase in kind. This article shows how a simple economic model may be used to estimate the potential environmental impact of Bitcoin mining for a given Bitcoin price. These estimates reveal that the record-breaking surge in Bitcoin price at the start of 2021 may result in the network consuming as much energy as all data centers globally, with an associated carbon footprint matching London’s footprint size.
The rise of blockchain as a techno-solution in the development sector underscores the critical imbalances of data power under ‘computational capitalism’ ( Beller, 2018 ). This article will consider the political economy of techno-solutionist and blockchain discourses in the developing world, using as its object of study blockchain projects in Pacific Island nations. Backed by US State Department soft power initiatives such as Tech Camp, these projects inculcate tech-driven notions of economic and political development, or ICT4D, while opening up new terrains for data accumulation and platform control. Blockchain developers in search of proof of concept have found the development sector a fecund space for tech experimentation as they leverage a desire for tech-development and exploit regulatory weakness. The material implications of blockchain projects and discourse have been to create governance solutions which bypass the developing world state as a largely corrupting intermediary. In the Pacific, this has meant blockchain supply-chain management systems, proprietary financial innovation in humanitarian relief and an Asian Development Bank project to manage indigenous Fijian lands exclusively on the blockchain. In all these instances, discourses of solutionism, innovation and data empowerment have been deployed in aid of blockchain cartographies of control.
The 2009 pledge to mobilize US$100 billion a year by 2020 in climate finance to developing nations was not specific on what types of funding could count. Indeterminacy and questionable claims make it impossible to know if developed nations have delivered; as 2020 passes, opportunity exists to address these failures in a new pledge.
The financial crisis of 2008 resulted, among other, on a popular awareness that the monetary system was not working for the interest of the many. The blockchain technology that was launched soon after offered monetary activists and entrepreneurs a tool to re-imagine, reclaim and reorganize money along a vague ideal of a commons paradigm. A wave of monetary experimentation ensued that took a most concrete form in two entrepreneurial spaces: crypto-currencies with global ambitions and local currencies based on communal democracy. Seemingly distinct on the outset, both strands share a determination to develop a monetary system that serves the many. This has led participants on both sides to reach out toward each other. The article looks at one such attempt: the Sarafu community crypto-currencies in Kenya. These currencies are embedding the creation of money in traditional community savings groups. Using Eleanor Ostrom's framework and building on interview and ethnographic material, the article identifies the economic logic of mutualization proper of the savings groups as one that transforms private assets (one's savings) into a financial commons for the group. To build on this logic, the Sarafu model in-the-making is embedding the production and governance of the new community cryptocurrencies in these saving groups. In that doing, Sarafu has the potential to advance a new architecture of money. However, findings suggest that the standardization and automation of the new monetary rules through smart contracts impose neoliberal ideas that slipped into the code, risking the erosion of the very communal decision-making processes that made savings groups interesting anchors of a money commons in the first place.
This report reviews the impact of significant changes in the industry since the publication of the 2nd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study in 2018. It provides novel insights into the state of the cryptoasset industry, having gathered data from 280 companies in 59 countries and across four main market segments – exchanges, payments, custody and mining.
As the resource intensity of running Bitcoin has increased over recent years, it has become a serious concern for its potential impact on health and climate. Within this context, there exists a growing need for accurate information. Various organizations need this for multiple purposes like properly assessing the urgency of the problem, implementing the right policy response in the right locations and for setting up mitigation programs.
We propose a market dynamics approach to evaluate the current methods for obtaining information on Bitcoin's energy demand. This allows us to establish that, while historically the Bitcoin mining industry has been growing most of the time, this growth allows market participants to pursue strategies that don't necessarily involve the best devices, device settings, or locations. The bigger the profitability of mining, the more it allows market participants to make decisions that result in suboptimal power efficiency of the Bitcoin network. Specifically, while the profitability of mining peaked during 2019, we find that market participants primarily used older generations of devices with better availability and lower acquisition costs. Common estimation approaches don't only fail to capture this behavior, but also fail to properly capture the market circumstances, like seasonal and geographic variation in electricity prices, that help enable participants to do so in the first place. This combination leaves common approaches prone to providing optimistic estimates during growth cycles. We conservatively estimate the Bitcoin network to consume 87.1 TWh of electrical energy annually per September 30, 2019 (equaling a country like Belgium).
The Global E-waste Monitor 2020 provides the most comprehensive overview of the global e-waste challenge, explains how it fits into international efforts to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, and discusses how to create a sustainable society and circular economy. The report provides a national and regional analysis on e-waste quantities and legislative instruments, and makes predictions until 2030. It also encourages decision-makers to increase activities to measure and monitor e-waste using an internationally recognised methodological framework.
Visit https://globalewaste.org/ for more information.
‘FinTech’ is the digital sector of retail money and finance widely proclaimed to be transforming banking in the global North and ‘banking the unbanked’ in the global South. This paper develops a perspective for critically understanding FinTech as a platform political economy that is marked by three distinctive and related processes: reintermediation, consolidation, and capitalisation. Through experimentation with the platform business model and building on the digital infrastructures and data flows of the broader platform ecosystem, a constellation of organisations – including start-ups, early-career firms, BigTech companies and incumbent banks – are engaged in processes of platform reintermediation. Changing the bases of competition in retail money and financial markets and encouraging oligopoly and even monopoly, the reintermediation processes of FinTech are presently manifest in strong tendencies towards platform consolidation. The imagined potential of FinTech has also triggered intensive processes of capitalisation, with platforms receiving significant prospective investment by venture capital, private equity funds, banks and BigTech firms.
This commentary explores how climate crises are used to justify 'crypto-colonialism', whereby blockchain technology is used to extract economic benefits from those suffering the scars of historic colonial expansion in the Global South. These benefits include land, labour, data and other resources needed to facilitate capital interests elsewhere. As with past neoliberal development agendas imposing structural economic reforms, the contemporary crypto-colonial exercises discussed here are driven in pursuit of a common good-to protect the global commons and improve people's lives. The paper explores how investors are drawn to the sustainable development frontiers-the code/spaces where crypto-colonial conjuring manifests. Blockchain is implicated within crypto-colonialism in three ways. Firstly, it plays into ongoing narratives of 'green grabbing', where local claims to resources are liquidated for green investments. Secondly, the technology perpetuates North-South trade and investment inequalities, and thirdly, a new power asymmetry is enabled by the technology through data colonialism and surveillance capitalism. In reviewing the spaces where crypto-colonialism manifests, the paper argues that despite being distributed, techno-ecological fixes are never placeless. How people configure, use, and are impacted by blockchain platforms is geographically contingent.
Although blockchain is often posed as a revolutionary and disruptive technology, its politics and socio-technical configurations often align with aims to maintain the status quo, and/or aims to concentrate wealth and to make existing powers more efficient. I empirically describe how colonial-contingent, neoliberal economic policies in Puerto Rico have incentivized the techno-capitalist industries of cryptocurrency and blockchain. Portions of the archipelago are being re-made into a so-called “crypto-utopia” to satisfy the desires of new settlers in a new form of crypto-colonialism. Puerto Rican government organizations, institutions, and businesses are also engaging blockchain technology with differing intents, all using rhetoric as a covert design tool. In this paper I will focus on blockchain and cryptocurrency as neoliberal and libertarian technologies adopted by governmental agencies, businesses, organizations, and individuals, as well as efforts of resistance through alternative, decolonial design.
In this paper we find that the Bitcoin network, with an electrical energy footprint of 491.4 to 765.4 kWh per transaction on average, is relatively much more energy-hungry than the traditional financial system. Even though it has been argued that renewable energy may help mitigating the environmental impact of this, we find that there exist fundamental challenges in uniting variable renewable energy production with the consistent demand of Bitcoin mining machines. Moreover, we find that the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining reaches beyond its energy use. Continuous increasing energy (cost) efficiency of newer iterations of mining devices ensures that older ones will inevitably be disposed on a regular basis. The resulting electronic waste generation could equal that of a small country like Luxembourg, with a staggering average footprint of four light bulbs worth of electronic waste per processed Bitcoin transaction. Bitcoin will therefore have to address its sustainability problem in another way. This may consist of replacing its mining mechanism with a greener alternative like Proof-of-Stake.
This article provides a review of recent anthropological, archeological, geographical, and sociological research on anthropogenic drivers of climate change, with a particular focus on drivers of carbon emissions, mitigation and adaptation. The four disciplines emphasize cultural, economic, geographic, historical, political, and social‐structural factors to be important drivers of and responses to climate change. Each of these disciplines has unique perspectives and makes noteworthy contributions to our shared understanding of anthropogenic drivers, but they also complement one another and contribute to integrated, multidisciplinary frameworks. The article begins with discussions of research on temporal dimensions of human drivers of carbon emissions, highlighting interactions between long‐term and near‐term drivers. Next, descriptions of the disciplines' contributions to the understanding of mitigation and adaptation are provided. It concludes with a summary of key lessons offered by the four disciplines as well as suggestions for future research.
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• Climate Economics > Economics and Climate Change
The vast transactional, trust and security advantages of Bitcoin are dwarfed by the intentionally resource-intensive design in its transaction verification process which now threatens the climate we depend upon for survival. Indeed Bitcoin mining and transactions are an application of Blockchain technology employing an inefficient use of scarce energy resources for a financial activity at a point in human development where world governments are scrambling to reduce energy consumption through their Paris Agreement climate change commitments and beyond to mitigate future climate change implications. Without encouraging more sustainable development of the potential applications of Blockchain technologies which can have significant social and economic benefits, their resource-intensive design combined now pose a serious threat to the global commitment to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. The article examines government intervention choices to desocialise negative environmental externalities caused by high-energy consuming Blockchain technology designs. The research question explores how to promote the environmentally sustainable development of applications of Blockchain without damaging this valuable sector. It studies existing regulatory and fiscal policy approaches towards digital currencies in order to provide a basis for further legal and policy tools targeted at mitigating energy consumption of Blockchain technologies. The article concludes by identifying appropriate fiscal policy options for this purpose, as well as further considerations on the potential for Blockchain technology in climate change mitigation.
Due to increasing global demand for palm oil, coal, and timber, Indonesia has become the largest contributor of greenhouse gases from primary forest loss in the world. Carbon market mechanisms, like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+), are being promoted by many elements of Indonesia’s government as an effective policy response. The REDD+ programme is designed to enable the provision of financial compensations to protect and restore standing forests by making them more valuable
than the timber they contain. However, the logic of REDD+ constructs people living in and around project sites as environmentally destructive and therefore in need of incentivisation to do otherwise. Local people are compensated for the ‘opportunity costs’ of not degrading forests. Within this frame ‘locals’—suffering from the malaise of dispossession—are Othered as illegal loggers, poachers, greedy miners or arsonists. In reality, REDD+ often facilitates the continuation of violence, legitimising an image of small-holders, rather than large international corporations, as the cause of forest degradation in Indonesia. Focusing on the Sungai Lamandau REDD+ project of Central Kalimantan, I discuss how, for some of Sungai Lamandau’s landless farmers, REDD+ is accelerating the very violence and environmentally destructive behaviours it claims to discourage. Farmers are becoming embroiled in other ongoing processes, pushing them towards illicit livelihood strategies, sometimes with devastating outcomes.
This paper explores the cryptographic aspects of Bitcoin. I suggest that cryptography can be reimagined and reconceptualised, putting forth an alternative to the dominant view that cryptography is secrecy. I argue that we can fruitfully view cryptography as a discrete notational system. I describe the specific cryptographic mechanisms as used in Bitcoin, and building on this foundation I offer a description of a full Bitcoin transaction. My method for understanding this technical foundation was to engage in praxis, so I describe the lessons I learned by running a Bitcoin mining machine. In conclusion, by drawing on my reconceptualization of cryptography as a discrete notational system, I suggest that Bitcoin functions as a new weapon in our control society.
Due to land-use conversions for palm oil, mining and other extractive industries, Indonesia remains the largest
contributor of greenhouse gases from primary forest loss in the world. Nowhere are solutions to large-scale forest loss more urgently required. To reverse the trend, the Government of Indonesia is banking on carbon market mechanisms like the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) programme. REDD+ is designed to enable the provision of economic compensations to protect forests by making them more valuable standing than cut down. The Sungai Lamandau REDD+ demonstration activity is unique in Indonesia as the first REDD+ project officially proposed by a community group upon land they hope to manage autonomously. Despite the project’s ‘bottom-up’ architecture, for some, access to Sungai Lamandau’s REDD+ benefits remain exclusive. These exclusions are not only something imposed by powerful external actors, but has emerged endogenously, through the everyday functioning of gendered market relations, and community-based socio-environmental and ethno-territorial movements. This paper adopts a feminist-inspired intimacy-geopolitics to explore the nuanced powers of exclusion used by Sungai Lamandau’s farmers to access the project’s non-monetary REDD+ benefits. The paper focuses on ‘intimate exclusions’ – everyday processes of accumulation and dispossession among villagers and small-holders. In doing so, it highlights the hazards of developing REDD+ projects structured with limited sympathy for marginalised actors. Although the seemingly ‘inclusive’ benefits sharing structure attracted excellent ethical carbon credit ratings, the project still failed to address (and even exacerbated) existing inequalities – a root cause of Sungai Lamandau’s forest degradation.
Hydrological regimes strongly influence the biotic diversity of river ecosystems by structuring physical habitat within river channels and on floodplains. Modification of hydrological regimes by dam construction can have important consequences for river ecosystems. This study examines the impacts of the construction of two dams, the Gezhouba Dam and the Three Gorges Dam, on the hydrological regime of the Yangtze River in China. Analysis of hydrological change before and after dam construction is investigated by evaluating changes in the medians and ranges of variability of 33 hydrological parameters. Results show that the hydrological impact of the Gezhouba Dam is relatively small, affecting mainly the medians and variability of low flows, the rate of rise, and the number of hydrological reversals. The closure of the Three Gorges Dam has substantially altered the downstream flow regime, affecting the seasonal distribution of flows, the variability of flows, the magnitude of minimum flows, low-flow pulses, the rate of rise, and hydrological reversals. These changes in flow regime have greatly influenced the aquatic biodiversity and fish community structure within the Yangtze River. In particular, populations of migratory fish have been negatively impacted. The results help to identify the magnitudes of hydrological alteration associated with the construction of dams on this important large river and also provide useful information to guide strategies aimed at restoration of the river's ecosystems.
Increasingly, one hears furtive whispers in the halls of conservation: "REDD+ is dead; it's time to cut our losses and move on." In a recent Conservation Biology editorial, Redford, Padoch and Sunderland (2013) identify REDD+ (Reduced Emissions through avoided Deforestation and forest Degradation) as one of the latest in a long line of conservation "fads," defined as "approaches that are embraced enthusiastically and then abandoned" (2013: 437). They caution: "we must take such fads more seriously, to work collectively to develop learning organizations. . .and study where new ideas come from. why they are adopted, why they are dropped, and what residual learning remains" (2013: 438). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Environmental scientists play a key role in society's responses to environmental problems, and many of the studies they perform are intended ultimately to affect policy. The precautionary principle, proposed as a new guideline in environmental decision making, has four central components: taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty; shifting the burden of proof to the proponents of an activity; exploring a wide range of alternatives to possibly harmful actions; and increasing public participation in decision making. In this paper we examine the implications of the precautionary principle for environmental scientists, whose work often involves studying highly complex, poorly understood systems, while at the same time facing conflicting pressures from those who seek to balance economic growth and environmental protection. In this complicated and contested terrain, it is useful to examine the methodologies of science and to consider ways that, without compromising integrity and objectivity, research can be more or less helpful to those who would act with precaution. We argue that a shift to more precautionary policies creates opportunities and challenges for scientists to think differently about the ways they conduct studies and communicate results. There is a complicated feedback relation between the discoveries of science and the setting of policy. While maintaining their objectivity and focus on understanding the world, environmental scientists should be aware of the policy uses of their work and of their social responsibility to do science that protects human health and the environment. The precautionary principle highlights this tight, challenging linkage between science and policy.
This commentary considers the challenges and trade-offs in using blockchain as the facilitating digital infrastructure for degrowth projects. A blockchain is simply a distributed database. The technology is being used for a wide range of applications relevant to economic exchange and environmental sustainability. Many degrowth scholars wholly reject technical fixes for politically induced environmental crises, seeing blockchain projects as wasteful and counter to convivial social relations. Others highlight the technology's potential for facilitating redistributive and regenerative economies, but without much detail. This paper argues that if blockchain is ever to prove useful for the degrowth movement it would need to overcome challenges in three important areas: 1) building democratic and (re)distributive economies, 2) regenerating the environment without commodifying it, and 3) facilitating international alliances without imposing a particular set of values. What is certain is that technology on its own will not transcend the political struggles tackled by degrowth activists. However, under certain conditions, blockchain might make those struggles more effective.
Carbon offsetting has been beset by problems and failures, and relies on the mobilisation of supportive discourses and knowledge-claims to retain a sense of credibility. Psycho-analytical ideology critique can help explain how these processes interact with questions of subjectivity. Analysis of interviews with carbon offset market practitioners suggests that identification with carbon offsetting is only partial, and that it is sustained through disavowal, through trust in the authority of the Other, and through desire for carbon offsetting’s unrealisable promises. It is important to grapple with the fantasy that sustains carbon offsetting in order to better understand, and indeed contest, its enduring appeal and its continued inclusion in climate governance.
Ulrich Gallersdörfer is a research associate in the Department of Informatics at the Technical University of Munich. His research focuses on identity management in blockchains. His interest extends to further aspects of the technology, ranging from environmental implications to data analytics applications.
Lena Klaaßen is a graduate student at TUM School of Management at the Technical University of Munich. She is specialized in energy markets and accounting. Her research focuses on carbon accounting in the corporate and cryptocurrency space. She has previously analyzed blockchain-related firms for a venture capital fund.
Christian Stoll conducts research at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the Center for Energy Markets of the Technical University of Munich. His research focuses on the implications of climate change from an economic point of view.
In this paper, a study for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) trade is conducted by using graph theory. In specific, exports and imports for UN COMTRADE data code 854810 which corresponds to waste and scrap of prim cell are collected for 175 countries around the world, spanning the period from 2002 to 2014. WEEE trade networks are generated for each year and communities are produced applying spinglass community detection algorithm. Communities are compared with groups of countries produced by applying detection community algorithms on networks based on common currency, differences in CO2 levels, geographical distances, common language, colonial ties, and regional trade agreements (RTA). An estimation of the factors that affect key network metrics has also been conducted, using a random effect linear regression. The model assesses the effect that economic, environmental, geographical, and social, as well as intra-country commercial agreements have on degree of nodes, betweenness score, and clustering coefficient. The results indicate that communities of WEEE trade network are very similar with groups produced by clustering countries regarding CO2 emissions and distance. Distance, contiguity, common currency, colonial ties, common language, and differences in CO2 levels tend to affect significantly the degree of countries engaged in WEEE trade network. Betweenness score is affected only by common currency while clustering coefficient by common language and CO2 levels between countries. A statistical validation of WEEE network, with Erdos – Renyi, Small – World and Scale – Free networks, was conducted. The results reveal that in, cycle, and middle clustering coefficients of Erdos – Renyi and Small – World networks were statistically equal to the corresponding of WEEE network for the period 2004–2008, while Scale – Free's out and clustering coefficients coincided with WEEE's across all years.
This commentary explores how blockchain technology is being leveraged to improve marine conservation and fisheries supply chain management globally. In doing so, the paper considers the technical and political challenges of building trust and equity for various stakeholders. A blockchain is a smart electronic database, distributed to all users, immutably tracking every transaction that has ever taken place on the network. The blockchain is very difficult to hack, with no single point of authority to make mistakes and collapse the system. Automated consensus protocols enable data transmitted on the network to be verified and stored immutably, minimising the risk of data corruption to near-zero. Blockchain is being increasingly hyped for a range of services and industries, including transparent resourcing for marine conservation, reducing pollution from plastics, reducing slavery at sea, and sustainable fisheries management. Public distrust in some conservation operations , as well as in the provenance of seafood, is growing. Although some global marine conservation organisations and seafood producers have found practical solutions in disruptive technologies like blockchain, riding this wave will only prove worthwhile if coastal communities and artisanal fishers are on board and stand a chance of landing a fair share of the benefits.
Concern about the carbon footprint of Bitcoin is not holding back blockchain developers from leveraging the technology for action on climate change. Although blockchain technology is enabling individuals and businesses to manage their carbon emissions, the social and environmental costs and benefits of doing so remain unclear.
Participation in the Bitcoin blockchain validation process requires specialized hardware and vast amounts of electricity, which translates into a significant carbon footprint. Here, we demonstrate a methodology for estimating the power consumption associated with Bitcoin’s blockchain based on IPO filings of major hardware manufacturers, insights on mining facility operations, and mining pool
compositions. We then translate our power consumption estimate into carbon emissions, using the localization of IP addresses. We determine the annual electricity consumption of Bitcoin, as of November 2018, to be 45.8 TWh and estimate that annual carbon emissions range from 22.0 to 22.9 MtCO2. This means that the emissions produced by Bitcoin sit between the levels produced by the
nations of Jordan and Sri Lanka, which is comparable to the level of Kansas City. With this article, we aim to gauge the external costs of Bitcoin and inform the broader debate on the costs and benefits of cryptocurrencies.
In this commentary, we explore how blockchain is being leveraged to address the fundamental problems with market-based forest protection globally. In doing so, we consider the ways 'cryptocarbon' initiatives are creating new challenges that have so far escaped critical scrutiny. A blockchain is a distributed and immutable electronic database-a ledger of every transaction that has ever taken place on a network, stored as cryptographically secured blocks, strung together in a chain. The technology is being increasingly hyped as applicable for a whole range of industries, social service provisions, and environmental management concerns. This includes the facilitation of natural asset market mechanisms, like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). The original aim of REDD+ was to incentivise conservation, making tropical forests more valuable standing than cut down. Multiple factors, including lack of consumer interest, created an oversupply of carbon commodities. Ninety-five percent of the world's avoided deforestation credits, representing millions of hectares of conserved forest, were stuck without a buyer. Several flagging REDD+ projects are now hoping that blockchain technology can carry them to new heights of market capitalisation. However, like with any powerful new technology, the benefits remain ambiguous.
Just like its recent predecessors, blockchain – also known as the distributed ledger technology – is considered to have the potential to cause major economic, political and social transformations in the Global South. The visible effects of this technology are already being noted there. We present early evidence linking the use of blockchain in overcoming some economic, social and political challenges facing the Global South. The article highlights the key applications and uses of blockchain in developing countries. It demonstrates how blockchain can help promote transparency, build trust and reputation, and enhance efficiency in transactions. The article looks at opportunities and key triggers for blockchain diffusion in these countries. It also delves into challenges and obstacles that developing economies are likely to encounter in the use of blockchain.
Globally, electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is now a part of daily life. When this equipment becomes waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE or E-waste), however, it needs to be properly processed, for use as a source of materials for future production and renewable energy, and to minimize both the exploitation of raw materials and the deleterious effects on both the environment and human health. A large quantity of e-waste is generated in both India and China, and both countries still suffer from an entrenched informal e-waste processing sector. Consequently, valuable materials in e-waste are disposed in open land, rather than being properly extracted for reuse and recycling. In this article we note that the major portion of e-waste in China and India is collected by the informal sector and treated with primitive methods. Additionally, illegal shifting agents also play a role by mislabeling e-waste and exporting them to developing countries. This article proposes that: the implementation of e-waste management laws and policies for proper e-waste collection, treatment and recycling, better educate consumers on the dangers of e-waste contamination, restrict the illegal movement of e-waste across borders, and support the development of a formal, regulated e-waste processing industry by funding incentive programs constructing recycling infrastructure. These measures should increase the recycling capacity and decrease the amount of WEEE contaminating the environment and endangering human health.
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.
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