Blockchain Sustainability Index

Last updated: 3/6/2023 10:36:19 AM

Name	Ticker	CO2 per Transaction (in kg)	KWh per Transaction	MWh per Day	Transactions per MWh
Bitcoin SV	BSV	0.0045	0.0225	302.6780	44410.1091
Dash	DASH	6.2672	31.3360	321.3818	31.9122
Litecoin	LTC	9.7575	48.7876	6159.6337	20.4970
Bitcoin Cash	BCH	17.4681	87.3404	821.0000	11.4495
Zcash	ZCASH	26.2795	131.3976	868.1439	7.6105
Dogecoin	DOGE	35.7244	178.6218	6069.5689	5.5984
Bitcoin Core	BTC	116.1228	580.6142	168845.5000	1.7223

How is the energy usage calculated?

To calculate energy usage, the terahashes per second of a particular blockchain is divided by the terahashes per Watt of its most efficient miner. The resulting figure is then multiplied by 24 to determine energy consumption over a day. This value is divided by 1,000,000 to convert it to megawatt-hours (MWh).

Sources:

- BitInfoCharts
- minerstat

How is the CO2 output calculated?

We use an estimated carbon intensity of 0.2 kg per KWh. Meaning we multiply KWh per transaction with 0.2 to calculate CO2 per transaction.

Source:
- Our World in Data

What about Proof Of Stake?

Many believe that Proof of Stake blockchains have solved the sustainability issues of blockchain. However, a closer look at the network reveals several factors that prevent an accurately calculated power consumption and CO2 emissions:

Unlike Proof of Work, Proof of Stake reintroduces ownership and equity control over the network¹
Each client in a Proof of Stake network needs to run a full node, which results in externalizing power consumption back to the clients instead of allowing thin, energy efficient, clients²
Measuring Proof of Stake power consumption is difficult due to the lack of a reliable method for calculating the number of nodes.
Fundamental issues with PoS make it impossible to solve the problem of distributed consensus, which could lead to even more power consumption and CO2 emissions ³

These factors prevent us from providing accurate data on Proof of Stake power consumption and CO2 emissions. As an example, although the estimated power consumption per transaction on Ethereum is 0.04KWh⁴, we anticipate its practical power consumption to be considerably higher given the previous reasons.

Sources: