Ethereum provides as much energy as Austria needs

Ethereum technology with its own Cryptocurrency Ether It can reduce their energy consumption through a system conversion Significantly decreased in September. According to a new study, cryptocurrency is now consuming up to 99.9996 percent less electricity. In absolute numbers, this is about the same Electricity consumption in Ireland or Austria.

The “merger” has made Ethereum more sustainable

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ether have always been criticized for being energy intensive. By mid-September, the so-called “Proof of workIn order to validate transactions on the blockchain in a forgery-proof way, computer processors had to do so complex calculations to implement. Whoever solved the puzzles first received a reward in the form of bitcoin or ether.

On Ethereum, it’s a one-to-one solution “merge” event On September 15th of this concept and elevated to the so-called “Proof of stakeHere, randomly selected participants in the network check whether the transaction is valid or not. The more posts a subscriber has in the network, the higher the chances that they will be selected.

Criticisms from the bitcoin community

Bitcoin advocates in particular find this method unfair. However, the method has an advantage Significantly less energy To need the need.

“The Bitcoin community has been adamantly against change — but the Ethereum community, despite fears and resistance, has shown that software can be made greener,” writes study author Alex De Vries of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Energy consumption is similar to MasterCard

According to his calculations, Ether now uses between 0.8 and 14.7 watt-hours of energy per transaction. For comparison: average MasterCard transaction need 0.7 watt-hours.

Before the merger, Ethereum needed around 100 terawatt hours of electricity per year – this roughly corresponds to the consumption of the Netherlands. In 2021, Austria consumed approx 73 TWh Electricity.

You can read more news about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on our cryptocurrency channel futurezone.at/crypto.