Ever since open source bitcoin software was introduced by an anonymous computer programmer in 2009, this new technology rapidly gained the attention of the financial sector as a quick and easy way to make money not subject to governmental regulation like print money. At the outset, the hidden environmental costs of bitcoin were unrecognized. Recent research and investigations by governments, international organizations, nonprofits, and scholars are revealing the major environmental impacts of bitcoin mining. Here we’ll unpack how bitcoin mining spells nothing but bad news for both the climate and the environment. What is bitcoin? Bitcoin is the most popular and world’s largest cryptocurrency , an exclusively digital money that exchanges independently of a central bank, so it’s not prone to inflation like print money is. Since its beginnings, bitcoin has been the most highly valued and widely tracked of all kinds of cryptocurrency through a blockchain ledger system. The ledger is...
