Today, a Discord debate about NFTs and their environmental effects politely devolved into the situation depicted by XKCD:


Http://www.xkcd.com/articles/386/
It turns out I was looking for the wrong person on the internet
When adjusted for market capitalization1, my hypothesis was that cryptoasset CO2 emissions are much lower than those of a big US tech company like Apple
I wanted to equate Bitcoin to Apple and Microsoft to figure this out. Although Ethereum is more important to NFTs, there are few studies on ETH carbon emissions, which appear to be proportional to Bitcoin anyway
Bitcoin (BTC) had a market value of $539 billion at the end of 20202, Apple (AAPL) $2.3 trillion3, and Microsoft (MSFT) $1.9 trillion4
And the projected gross CO2 emissions (CO2e) for Bitcoin, Apple, and Microsoft in 2020 (35.89 Mt CO2e5, 22.6 Mt CO2e6, and 12 Mt CO2e7, respectively)
Despite the fact that Bitcoin's carbon emissions were higher than I predicted, my confirmation bias had persuaded my limited mental math that low emissions and a large market cap meant I was about to nail this statistic. In comparison to tech giants, I wanted to prove that crypto has a fraction of the pollution. However, the inverse is real
Bitcoin emits 6.7 times as much CO2 as Apple and 10.6 times as much as Microsoft, rounded to one decimal place. That's incredible
As a result, you've come full circle to the headline you clicked on. A late-2020 Apple iPhone 12 Pro would cost $9998, while one Bitcoin would cost $29,001.729. The decision to purchase one Bitcoin versus an iPhone 12 Pro emits 195 times as much CO2 if both help the underlying organisation and their total carbon emissions
Is this to suggest that cryptoassets are a doomed technology? No, this emphasises the importance of existing institutions adopting and supporting cryptocurrency. There is a market. Meanwhile, we must be wary of the actors we currently allow in crypto networks, as well as the lengths to which they are willing to go in the pursuit of profit
I'd also like to bring up some valid counter-arguments to the above
Carbon emissions from publicly traded companies are underreported, while emissions from crypto mining are overreported
Though I haven't found any conclusive proof to support either scenario, the motivation is undeniable. To report progress toward becoming carbon neutral (or carbon negative) by 2030, Apple or Microsoft can use the simplest estimate of their emissions. On the other hand, there is a current trend on the internet to highlight research that exaggerates crypto mining pollution while burying contrary evidence. The attention economy is won by sensational news
The emissions from a proof of stake model are significantly lower than those from a proof of work model
Absolutely, but I believe that in the case of NFTs, PoW would take precedence since it prevents fraud. Emissions would be much smaller if there was evidence of stake. I'm not using forecasts in this case; instead, I'm using calculated historical emissions
This is an apples-to-oranges comparison! What about gold mining, paper currency production, and the banking system as a whole?
I'd like to see a similar distinction made with gold and fiat currencies, but I'm less concerned with carbon footprint for the sake of wealth accumulation. Counting our carbon footprint beans in terms of productivity makes more sense.. If you want your essay written by a highly professional writers, then you are in a right place. We have hundreds of highly skilled writers working 24/7 to provide qualityessay writing services to the students all over the World. For the time being, the outputs of tech companies like Apple and Microsoft are likely to outperform cryptoassets in terms of productivity performance
¹ The aggregate market value of a business is measured in dollar amounts by market capitalization, or "market cap." 2 Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/investing/market-capitalization-defined/ http://www.coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/historical-data/ 3 Data sourced from https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-find-historical-market-capitalization-data-e-g-what-were-the-largest-tech-companies-by-market-capitalization-in-the-1970s-1980s-1990s-and-2000s-and-what-is-the-most-reliable-source-for-this-information, using the formula (Historic Close / Latest Close