When China banned bitcoin mining on its land, it was thought that this would promote the migration of bitcoin mining farms to other countries. People predicted this as a positive trend since it would affect the decentralization of currency – China alone housed 60 percent of miners.
However, the anticipation of progressive change is only a mirage. The shifting of bitcoin miners out of china has caused a surge in carbon emissions all around the world. We are still not sure if this negative consequence can be made up by the improvement that decentralization will bring. After all, environmental damage is a long-term loss.
Research report
As expected, the Joules Journal reported that most bitcoin miners in China relied on renewable energy sourced from hydroelectric projects to mine bitcoins. After the ban, they moved to countries that do not facilitate the use of renewable energy for bitcoin mining operations. They now hold bases in the USA where they rely on natural gas and Kyrgistan where they use hard coal for mining.
China took the step to ban the use of clean energy for bitcoin mining towards creating a carbon-neutral state. Many other countries too have expressed worry over the utilization of their renewable energy sources for mining. These include Sweden and the ESMA partnership.
Renewable energy reliance for coin production has hence moved down from 42 to 25 percent. At the same time, the rate of carbon emissions from Bitcoin mining has gone up by almost 17 percent.
