Greenpeace is slamming Bitcoin (BTC) for its energy use following the successful Ethereum (ETH) merge that slashed its carbon emissions by more than 99%.
The environmental nonprofit organization plans to sink $1 million into its “Change the Code, Not the Climate” campaign for a flurry of new online ads to advocate for a change in Bitcoin’s code with the aim of reducing BTC’s energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) model.
Says Michael Brune, director of the ad campaign,
“With fires raging around the world and historic floods destroying lives and livelihoods, state and federal leaders and corporate executives are racing to decarbonize as quickly as possible. Ethereum has shown it’s possible to switch to an energy-efficient protocol with far less climate, air and water pollution. Other cryptocurrency protocols have operated on efficient consensus mechanisms for years. Bitcoin has become the outlier, defiantly refusing to accept its climate responsibility.”
Greenpeace says the campaign is also aimed at calling the attention of high-profile Bitcoin supporters, including Fidelity Investments and Jack Dorsey’s Block, to join in the effort of moving away from “a high-energy proof-of-work protocol.”
Ethereum’s merge with its Beacon Chain transformed the second-largest cryptocurrency from proof-of-work consensus model to a proof-of-stake one. The change in models reduces Ethereum’s carbon emissions by an estimated 99.99%, according to a CCRI report commissioned by ConsenSys, a blockchain software company.
Meanwhile, outspoken Bitcoin supporter Michael Saylor is defending BTC’s energy use in a new blog post where he calls it the “most efficient, cleanest industrial use of electricity.”
The former CEO of business analytics firm MicroStrategy says that his company’s analysis shows about 59.5% of energy for Bitcoin mining comes from sustainable sources and that BTC’s mining’s energy efficiency improved by 46% year-on-year.
He also it makes no sense to compare proof-of-stake networks to Bitcoin.
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