The release of the first cryptocurrency brought with it widespread intrigue. Up until 2009, the year which saw the release of Bitcoin – which many investors argue was the first cryptocurrency – traditional banks ruled the world of finance. Although Hashcash – one of the most successful pre-bitcoin digital currencies – had its moment in the 1990s, the last 10 years have seen the financial and technology markets become saturated in cryptocurrencies. But what lies behind cryptocurrencies initial success? Tired of traditional, centralised, closely monitored methods of banking, consumers and investors have become attracted to the decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies. One of the conditions required for the qualification of a cryptocurrency is, “the system does not require a central authority; its state is maintained through distributed consensus” (Jan Lansky). In 2009, mining – “the process through which new Bitcoins are created and transactions are recorded and verified on the blockchain” (Forbes) – begins. The first Bitcoin are traded in 2010 when, in exchange for two pizzas, someone sells 10,000 Bitcoin. According to a Forbes article back in 2017, if the buyer had kept the 10,000 Bitcoin until 2017, it would have been worth more than $100 million (Forbes). Sounding too good to be true? We think so too. Despite initial suggestions that mining and trading cryptocurrencies promised to become the environmental antidote to banking, research suggests that mining Bitcoin has catastrophic implications on the planet. Monitoring of Bitcoin energy consumption reported that one single Bitcoin transaction uses 2277.13 kWh, the equivalent of an average US household’s energy consumption over 78 days (Digiconomist).

“In 2020, the bitcoin network consumed a reported 131.80 TWh of power to execute the algorithms that power its “mining” operations. This is equivalent of the power consumed by Argentina.” (WeForum)