New data reveals that Ethereum challenger Polkadot (DOT) consumes the least amount of electricity out of any leading blockchain.
According to new research conducted by the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI), the interoperable blockchain platform uses less power than other popular crypto assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL).
The institute found that DOT consumes just 6.6 times the electricity the average US household uses in a year, making it the least power-draining digital asset among the top chains.
For comparison, ETH uses 1.6 million times what the average US household uses in electricity while that number jumps up to 8.6 million for BTC, according to the CCRI.
“An average US household consumes about 10,600 kWh per year and therefore, the least electricity consuming network Polkadot consumes about 6.6 times the electricity and the most electricity consuming network Solana about 200 times the electricity (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2021)…
Bitcoin consumes much more electricity than any Proof of Stake system due to its Proof of Work consensus mechanism, resulting in the deployment of energy-intensive hardware.”
The data shows leading smart contract platform ETH is right behind BTC in terms of power usage, followed by other layer-1 protocols SOL, Cardano (ADA), Algorand (ALGO), Avalanche (AVAX) and Tezos (XTZ).
“Algorand consumes up to the factor of 9 compared to other cryptocurrencies such as Cardano and Polkadot. Tezos is in between these two groups. It consumes up to factor 5 of the low-energy blockchains, but only about 50% of Algorand’s consumption.”
Polkadot is exchanging hands at $21.45 at time of writing, an 23% increase from its seven-day high of $17.42.
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