LET'S ADDRESS DIGITAL CRUDE AND ITS MAJOR ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS

At this point, various opinions have been presented about the functionality of finance and projects demanded by the cryptographic world, as an economic model to overcome problems based on the centralization of the old traditional economy, so that currently the blockchain and the different protocols that are governed by it, have activated the alarms for users aware and trained in an alternative economic model, inclusive and with great economic benefits.

However, beyond the novelty of the cryptographic model, we have not yet managed to generate true massification and, on the contrary, criticism and demands are increasingly present, to the point that it is assumed by large entities and corporations as unscrupulous assets that threaten the environmental welfare, produced by the exorbitant demands of energy that allows to operate the equipment within the mining farms.

So the rejection by environmentalists has not been long in coming, they start from the idea that the protocols based on the proof of work are inefficient and generate a growing problem to society.

In this sense, through the journal Nature some of the recent ideas on research on the impact of Bitcoin on the environment have been reflected in this writing, it is noted that the problems generated by the main cryptocurrencies are growing at the environmental level.

The study developed, estimates that Bitcoin has generated environmental problems covering more than 12 billion dollars between the years 2016 and 2021 so that researchers have called the Bitcoin not as digital gold, but as digital crude oil for the great impacts it has caused in our environment.

The problem stems from the fact of the inefficiency of the protocol based on the proof of work where competition is unquestionably encouraged and for this, the indiscriminate use of resources and components with a high energy demand, which makes this economic model inefficient beyond the potential that BTC may have and its implications at an economic level.

Researchers start from a fundamental area, where it is assumed that human development must respond to a balance in three areas or components of knowledge that is defined as a balance at the economic, environmental and social level, remembering that currently humanity has focused on the economic and social and has left aside the environmental, which has increased the major problems that are occurring.

Undoubtedly, cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin in general, is presented as a great solution in economic terms, which has come to banish the centralization of traditional banking industries, who is in power by a small group of leaders, who have seized the capitalization of the market, while the rest of society remains cloistered in this routine life of taxes and payments never ending.

In this sense, the decentralized economy is presented as the solution to the problems outlined above, however, if we do not think about the environmental welfare, we will be making the same mistake of the past, hence we believe that one of the alternatives to improve the project, part of the fact of abandoning the protocol based on proof of work, for a more efficient one as can get to do the proof of participation that although there are already incidences of the same as for example the recent update of Ethereum through the Merge, the impacts do not seem to currently reflect the importance of the change of protocol.

Based on the above, the research developed and made public through Nature uses three specific analysis components, which we will classify as follows:

1. Assessing the impact of each BTC mined as of 2016 and what its incidence is as the economic model matures.

2. Evaluate the relationship between the value of each BTC and the impact at the environmental level that it generates.

3. Identify and compare the environmental implications provided by BTC compared to other industries.

According to the researchers, the study of the three previous criteria shows that BTC as an economic model is not favorable for our environment, since it is estimated that each BTC coin that is mined produces an impact of more than 35% on the environment, a percentage that has been growing since 2020 and currently remains at values close to 60%.

So if we compare this data with other industries, for example meat processing, we realize that the implications are very similar since the latter generates an impact on the environment of 33%, likewise electricity production affects environmental ecosystems by 46% and crude oil by 46%, which continues to leave the percentage of pollution and environmental impact provided by BTC in a bad light.

In particular, I consider that all of us who make life in the crypto market are aware of the environmental impact that in a certain way generates the economic model, in this sense, it seems ridiculous to think that the environmental demands do not correspond to the economic alternatives and benefits to society, which generate new income opportunities based on a decentralized economy, in the exchange person to person, in real estate data and with transparent, secure transactions and with great acceptance by users.

We agree that there are things to be corrected and I believe they are being done through the implementation of sustainable energy that reduces the impact of mining, but to think of abandoning an economic model that has come to generate a greater impact on people, is contradictory to human evolution.