Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse posted a tweet criticizing the massive energy consumption devoted to the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks.
Garlinghouse made his comments in response to an article by The Telegraph UK claiming that a single bitcoin transaction consumes more energy than the average British household does in two months.
Ripple’s CEO criticized Bitcoin and Ethereum for the “massive waste” in energy usage while providing no incentive for miners to take responsibility for the issue. He highlighted the environmental impact of crypto as a priority amidst global climate change.
Energy consumption for BTC and ETH mining is a massive waste and there’s no incentive to take responsibility for the carbon footprint. Absolutely 🤯 that this isn’t high on the agenda for the growing climate crisis… https://t.co/psR77m78Ua
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) March 4, 2020
According to the Telegraph report, the amount of energy required to run cryptocurrency networks has soared to an annual high of 77.78 terawatt-hours, which equals the amount of electricity consumed by all of Chile.
Alex de Vries, a blockchain specialist at PwC, explained that the carbon footprint of a single bitcoin transaction is equal to 780,650 Visa transactions or spending 52,043 hours watching YouTube.
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