Bitcoin has come under pressure over the past few years for its high energy usage in mining the coins.
The CEO of chip manufacturing giant Intel has criticised Bitcoin's impact on the environment in a recent interview with Bloomberg.
In 2019, Patrick Gelsinger stated that Bitcoin is badly designed as the technology consumes too much energy. When asked whether he still believes Bitcoin is a climate crisis, he replied affirmatively. Gelsinger said;
"A single ledger entry in Bitcoin consumes enough energy to power your house for almost a day. That's a climate crisis."
The leading cryptocurrency has come under heavy scrutiny over the past few years regarding its massive energy usage. The likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk also talked about Bitcoin's high energy usage and the damage it is doing to the environment.
The poof of work protocol has been documented to consume massive energy due to the mining process. As a result, some blockchains such as Ethereum are migrating to the proof of stake protocol which is more environmentally friendly.
The data obtained from Cambridge University shows that the Bitcoin network currently consumes an estimated 125 terawatt-hours of electricity annually. That is more electricity consumption annually than most countries, including the United Arabs Emirate, Sweden and Norway.
In the interview, Intel's CEO took the opportunity to promote the company's new mining chip. According to Gelsinger, Intel's mining chip addresses the climate issue associated with Bitcoin mining.
Gelsinger added that Intel is getting ready to launch its new mining chip, promising that it would be less harmful to the environment compared to the current chips. He said;
"We're going to work on fixing this because this is a powerful technology, an immutable leverageable digitized entry system can transform currency, transactions, supply chains, so yeah, this one's exciting."
Bitcoin has lost more than 3% of its value today and is currently trading $41,000 per coin.
