A Survey on Technologies Which Make Bitcoin Greener or More Justified
According to recent estimates, one bitcoin transaction consumes as much energy as 1.5 million Visa transactions. Why is bitcoin using so much energy? Most of the energy is used during the bitcoin mining process, which serves at least two significant purposes: a) distributing new cryptocurrency coins...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2022-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Access |
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| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9829550/ |
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| author | Henri T. Heinonen Alexander Semenov Jari Veijalainen Timo Hamalainen |
| author_facet | Henri T. Heinonen Alexander Semenov Jari Veijalainen Timo Hamalainen |
| author_sort | Henri T. Heinonen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | According to recent estimates, one bitcoin transaction consumes as much energy as 1.5 million Visa transactions. Why is bitcoin using so much energy? Most of the energy is used during the bitcoin mining process, which serves at least two significant purposes: a) distributing new cryptocurrency coins to the cryptoeconomy and b) securing the Bitcoin blockchain ledger. In reality, the comparison of bitcoin transactions to Visa transactions is not that simple. The amount of transactions in the Bitcoin network is not directly connected to the amount of bitcoin mining power nor the energy consumption of those mining devices; for example, it is possible to multiply the number of bitcoin transactions per second without increasing the mining power and the energy consumption. Bitcoin is not only “digital money for hackers”. It has very promising future potential as a global reserve currency and a method to make the World Wide Web (WWW) immune to cyberattacks such as the Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks. This survey approached cryptocurrencies’ various technological and environmental issues from many different perspectives. To make various cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), greener and more justified, what technological solutions do we have? We found that cryptocurrency mining might be cleaner than is generally expected. There is also a plan to make a vast renewable energy source available by combining Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion and Bitcoin mining. There are plans to use unconventional computing methods (quantum computing, reversible computing, ternary computing, optical computing, analog computing) to solve some of the issues regarding the vast energy consumption of conventional computing (including cryptocurrency mining). We think using spare computing cycles for grid computing efforts is justified. For example, there are billions of smartphones in the world. Many smartphones are being recharged every day. If this daily recharging period of twenty to sixty minutes would be used for grid computing, for example, finding new cures to cancer, it would probably be a significant breakthrough for medical research simulations. We call on the cryptocurrency communities to research and develop grid computing and unconventional computing methods for the most significant cryptocurrencies: bitcoin (BTC)and ether (ETH). |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T06:30:38Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-72536ee24b3c4a1390a9efb2aa35fe01 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T06:30:38Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj.art-72536ee24b3c4a1390a9efb2aa35fe012022-12-22T04:40:03ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362022-01-0110747927481410.1109/ACCESS.2022.31908919829550A Survey on Technologies Which Make Bitcoin Greener or More JustifiedHenri T. Heinonen0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5961-3571Alexander Semenov1Jari Veijalainen2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5809-5848Timo Hamalainen3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4168-9102Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, FinlandDepartment of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, University of Florida, Shalimar, FL, USAFaculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, FinlandFaculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, FinlandAccording to recent estimates, one bitcoin transaction consumes as much energy as 1.5 million Visa transactions. Why is bitcoin using so much energy? Most of the energy is used during the bitcoin mining process, which serves at least two significant purposes: a) distributing new cryptocurrency coins to the cryptoeconomy and b) securing the Bitcoin blockchain ledger. In reality, the comparison of bitcoin transactions to Visa transactions is not that simple. The amount of transactions in the Bitcoin network is not directly connected to the amount of bitcoin mining power nor the energy consumption of those mining devices; for example, it is possible to multiply the number of bitcoin transactions per second without increasing the mining power and the energy consumption. Bitcoin is not only “digital money for hackers”. It has very promising future potential as a global reserve currency and a method to make the World Wide Web (WWW) immune to cyberattacks such as the Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks. This survey approached cryptocurrencies’ various technological and environmental issues from many different perspectives. To make various cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), greener and more justified, what technological solutions do we have? We found that cryptocurrency mining might be cleaner than is generally expected. There is also a plan to make a vast renewable energy source available by combining Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion and Bitcoin mining. There are plans to use unconventional computing methods (quantum computing, reversible computing, ternary computing, optical computing, analog computing) to solve some of the issues regarding the vast energy consumption of conventional computing (including cryptocurrency mining). We think using spare computing cycles for grid computing efforts is justified. For example, there are billions of smartphones in the world. Many smartphones are being recharged every day. If this daily recharging period of twenty to sixty minutes would be used for grid computing, for example, finding new cures to cancer, it would probably be a significant breakthrough for medical research simulations. We call on the cryptocurrency communities to research and develop grid computing and unconventional computing methods for the most significant cryptocurrencies: bitcoin (BTC)and ether (ETH).https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9829550/BlockchainDLTcryptocurrencybitcoingreen technologysustainability |
| spellingShingle | Henri T. Heinonen Alexander Semenov Jari Veijalainen Timo Hamalainen A Survey on Technologies Which Make Bitcoin Greener or More Justified IEEE Access Blockchain DLT cryptocurrency bitcoin green technology sustainability |
| title | A Survey on Technologies Which Make Bitcoin Greener or More Justified |
| title_full | A Survey on Technologies Which Make Bitcoin Greener or More Justified |
| title_fullStr | A Survey on Technologies Which Make Bitcoin Greener or More Justified |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Survey on Technologies Which Make Bitcoin Greener or More Justified |
| title_short | A Survey on Technologies Which Make Bitcoin Greener or More Justified |
| title_sort | survey on technologies which make bitcoin greener or more justified |
| topic | Blockchain DLT cryptocurrency bitcoin green technology sustainability |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9829550/ |
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