Polkadot Has the Lowest Carbon Footprint, According to a Crypto Researcher

<p>For years, energy consumption by various crypto blockchains has been a source of contention, and now a research firm has attempted to quantify the precise differences in consumption by some of the top networks.</p> <p>Polkadot has the lowest total electricity consumption and total carbon emissions per year of the six so-called proof-of-stake blockchains studied, according to a report from the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute's Ulrich Gallersdörfer, Lena Klaaßen, and Christian Stoll. According to the report, Cardano uses the least amount of energy per node per year, and Solana uses the least amount of electricity per transaction. Ava Labs, which is associated with the Avalanche blockchain, one of those studied, commissioned the report.</p> <p>According to the report, using DeFiLlama data from February 1, the economic value secured in financial applications on each platform – known as the total value locked – is $18,454 per kilowatt hour for Avalanche, $4,395 for Solana, and $19.18 for Polkadot.</p> <p>Proof of Work systems, like the one that underpins Bitcoin, require computational power to solve mining puzzles in order to secure the network, whereas Proof of Stake requires validators to lock in funds for a set period of time in order to propose or vote on new blocks. Ethereum also employs Proof of Work, though it is currently undergoing upgrades that will convert it to Proof of Stake.</p> <p>Elon Musk, Bank of America Corp. researchers, and others have expressed concern about Bitcoin's energy consumption, as have countries that host miners. According to the CCRI report, Proof of Stake networks consume less than 0.001% of the Bitcoin network.</p> <p>The CCRI report goes on to say that the Proof of Stake networks studied use so little energy that other factors should be given more consideration when evaluating them.</p> <p>"Other factors such as decentralisation, network throughput, or functionality (e.g., smart contracts) should increase in relevance as decision criteria for practitioners selecting a PoS b