The rise of cryptocurrencies could disproportionately impact those most vulnerable to the climate crisis, a new paper has found.
The digital infrastructure behind the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, requires as much energy as the whole of Thailand. Its carbon footprint is now larger than the gold mining industry, growing from 22 megatonnes of CO2 equivalents two years ago to 90 megatonnes a year in 2021.
This growing footprint alongside its economic and environmental impacts is putting communities on the frontlines of climate change at risk, argue Peter Howson from Northumbria University and Alex de Vries from Digiconomist.
Their new paper “looks at the disproportionate impact that those activities are having on the world's poorest
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