The blockchain digital landscape has been growing at a revolutionary rate since its inception. It has improved how business is done, increased input and output in certain industries, and has become a way of life for some individuals. With all of the positives that blockchain technology has brought us, rising concerns about its adverse effect on the environment have emerged.

The impact of the high energy consumption required to mine and run cryptocurrency and greenhouse gas emissions could harm the earth, our beloved home planet. This is a valid and relevant concern in our society today.

Mining cryptocurrency like Bitcoin has had an alarming environmental impact over the years, but steps are being taken to reduce the negative effects through the use of renewable energy alternatives. In the journey for a better and greener earth, innovation has progressed and proved that green blockchains and eco-friendly cryptocurrencies are possible.

What is A Green Blockchain?

A green blockchain would be one that is friendly to the environment because its production and activities do not contribute significantly to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.

Achieving a green blockchain would require low energy usage while mining cryptocurrency and performing transactions. Users and miners would have to make a conscious decision to resort to green energy, thereby resulting in minimal greenhouse gas emissions.

These steps might be challenging, but they are not impossible. Web3 is already on its feet, offering a number of sustainable and eco-friendly blockchains that reduce the bar of negatives that the blockchain revolution has brought with it.

Reasons Why Green Blockchain Has Become Important in This Age

It isn’t difficult to understand why we need to opt for an eco-friendly blockchain these days; some of these reasons include:

Energy Consumption

Generally, blockchain technology is a lot of work, as cryptocurrency production consumes a large amount of energy. The negative impact of this is relevant, and it contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Green blockchain’s primary aim is to reduce this energy consumption, replace it with safer and better energy sources, and make the use of blockchain sustainable.

Climate Change

All over the world, leaders of countries and non-governmental organizations look for ways to control climate change and reduce our carbon footprints. Green blockchain is in the business to help achieve this by reducing the blockchain’s energy consumption and making it a more sustainable technology.

Decentralization

Decentralization is precious to the blockchain digital landscape and is a wonderful advantage of blockchain technology. However, decentralization, as the name implies, distributes creates more, which results in higher energy consumption. Green blockchain, once again, is a plausible solution as it would preserve decentralization and reduce energy consumption.

Ultimately, it all falls back on reducing high energy usage and searching for better alternatives.

How Can a Green Blockchain Be Achieved?

Over the years of its development, the blockchain has been met with challenges and has always found a way to overcome them. Achieving a green blockchain all over the industry is possible, and some steps can be taken to get there.

Switching to Renewable Energy Sources

By default, this is the most feasible and talked about solution, a building block for other solutions. Research postulates that most of the cryptocurrency community agrees that projects like Bitcoin consume a lot of energy and have a high potential to hurt the environment. They also know that the Proof of Work (PoW) makes Bitcoin unique and valuable to the cryptocurrency community.

What is the solution, then? The push for renewable and greener energy sources by miners instead of fossil fuel-sourced energy has been the main solution. However, regulations have to be made for this solution to gain relevant traction. The European Union and the United States have already put regulations on digital assets.

Sustainability Partnerships

Partnerships often result in positive outcomes. Initiatives that push and stand for green blockchain can always make arrangements to reach out and partner with sustainable energy providers, environmental organizations, and even governmental bodies to help promote the use of renewable energy sources across the blockchain ecosystem. Partnerships often drive innovation, which is always the key to moving forward.

Using Proof of Stake Mechanisms

Developing consensus mechanisms that do not necessarily need significant hash computations like Proof of Stake (PoS) is another way to achieve green blockchains. With the PoS consensus protocol, computers are selected to maintain the shared ledger on behalf of the entire peer-to-peer network based on the number of tokens they stake rather than their speed in hashing data.

This process uses minimal electricity and places little or no strain on the energy market. Around 60% of all operational blockchains use the PoS protocol, and the other 40% use one of almost 20 different protocols that do not require significant energy input. The Proof of Work consensus protocol still proves to be the most power-consuming out of all other consensus protocols.

There are some Cryptocurrencies that are Eco-friendly today, they include:

Cardano ADA
Ethereum (ETH)
Nano (XNO)
Ripple (XRP)
Polkadot (DOT)
Solana (SOL)
Stellar Lumen (XLM)

Conclusion

The earth is our home, and it is our duty to take care of it. The blockchain is our creation; it is our duty to let it keep staying in our home – as a welcome guest, of course. Green blockchain is the key to this. Taking steps towards completing this goal and seeing it diversify across the blockchain digital landscape would help reduce the negative effects mining comes with.