The crypto industry needs to clean up its act , and , fortunately , a recent evolution offers a glimmer of hope for less impactful crypto mining
SUSTAINABILITY
The crypto industry needs to clean up its act , and , fortunately , a recent evolution offers a glimmer of hope for less impactful crypto mining
TO ’ S Y
KE
WRITTEN BY : ALEX CLERE
The energy-intensive nature of crypto mining continues to be a thorn in the side of the crypto sector – which has suffered a turbulent 12 months , characterised by high volatility in the price of many cryptocurrencies and compounded by the collapse of crypto exchange FTX towards the end of last year .
But despite the large footprint of crypto mining , a recent evolution beckons the prospect of far less impactful cryptocurrencies in future . In September , Ethereum announced it had managed to make the switch from a ‘ proof-of-work ’ protocol to a ‘ proof-of-stake ’ protocol , which it claimed could cut out 99.9 % of the energy consumption used in the origination of its cryptocurrency .
What ’ s the difference between proof-of-work and proof-of-stake ? “ The original cryptocurrency creation mechanism – proof-of-work – achieves verification of transactions by having miners solve complex mathematical puzzles using computational power ,” explains Yaroslav Musii , Delivery Director for Financial Services and Insurance at technology company Intellias .
“ Proof-of-work miners need to continuously expand computational power to solve complex mathematical puzzles , create new blocks and validate transactions .
fintechmagazine . com 85