Chia Network, which emerged onto the cryptocurrency scene with the promise of cleaning up the environmental mess left by Bitcoin (BTC) miners, may not be as green as it seems. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum and others, Chia Network mines coins using an alternative to the energy-intensive proof-of-work. CHIA coins are produced using only hard drive storage and mining them doesn’t require specialized ASIC hardware or GPUs. But reports coming out of China suggest that saving the environment isn’t as easy as it sounds when it comes to crypto. According to local outlet Fast Technology, the shelf-life of a standard 512GB SSD …

Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of the world’s most popular smart contract platform, the Ethereum blockchain, has officially become a crypto billionaire. Buterin’s public Ether address, which he described as his main wallet back in 2018, has hit $1 billion on its balance following Ether’s meteoric rise above a $3,000 price mark on Monday. At the time of writing, the address holds around 333,500 Ether (ETH) now worth $1.029 billion, according to on-chain data from Etherscan, as ETH more than quadrupled in value from around $700 at the beginning of 2021. At publishing time, the world’s largest altcoin is trading at …

In the latest Cointelegraph Crypto Duel, founder of Digiconomist Alex de Vries and CEO and founder of Blockchain for Climate Joseph Pallant debated the intensity of Bitcoin’s footprint and possible paths forward to reduce it. As pointed out by de Vries, Bitcoin’s energy consumption has been increasing together with its network. The analyst predicts its carbon footprint could increase tremendously as Bitcoin gets closer to mass adoption. “I fear that this will quickly get completely out of control if adoption increases a lot more”, he said. According to de Vries, as long as Bitcoin functions with a proof-of-work system, bringing …

Bitcoin code contributors need to consider a move away from the cryptocurrency’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen argued. In a Wednesday blog post, Larsen outlined major PoW-related vulnerabilities, noting growing concerns over Bitcoin’s carbon footprint. According to the executive, PoW-based coins like Bitcoin (BTC) should consider a code change to carbon-neutral validation methods like proof-of-stake or federated consensus, or something yet to be developed. “I would argue that such a change is critically important for Bitcoin to remain the world’s dominant cryptocurrency. PoW’s current energy demands and carbon footprint are already unsustainably high, with Bitcoin alone consuming an …

Cryptocurrency mining rig manufacturer Bitmain announced the pending release of a new Ether (ETH) miner on Friday. The Antminer E9 model is an application-specific integrated circuit chip that will run on the Ethereum blockchain’s Ethash algorithm. No official release date has been announced for the E9 yet, however, the machine’s arrival may not be as impactful as first suspected. The rig faces competition in the form of Nvidia’s CMP (Cryptocurrency Mining Processor) range of GPUs designed specifically for crypto mining. Meanwhile, Ethereum’s scheduled move away from proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism could mean the E9’s utility will be short-lived. …

With adoption accelerating, blockchain’s potential to transform life in every way — from how business is conducted to labor division, operating systems and methods of collaboration — comes closer to fruition every day. If blockchain is the foundation to a truly digital model, then governance is the key to linking together the on and off-chain worlds. Governance itself encompasses and dictates the functionality of blockchain, from its organization structure to workflow execution, voting and incentives. Conceptually, governance can be understood as on and off-chain; the former being divided into protocol and contract levels. With the blockchain space rapidly diversifying, governance …

Ethereum developers recently proposed a network change called EIP-1559 — a proposal meant to combat the network's rising transaction fees. Expected to take effect in July of this year, the move would send a part of every transaction fee to the Ethereum network itself. Ether allocated in this manner would then be burned, reducing the number of coins in circulation. This change would also decrease the amount of rewards going to the network's miners, leading some to protest the move. A vocal group of participants have since begun to advocate for a demonstrative network takeover, which could threaten the security …

Ethereum’s developers appear to be hastening the network’s shift toward Proof-of-Stake consensus and away from the Proof-of-Work mining community. On March 11, developer “Mikhail Kalinin” published specifications for Eth2’s future blockchain merge with the existing Ethereum network. The documentation notes the consensus upgrade from PoS to PoW will be the core change enacted. 6. This is usually called the "merge" - when the existing Ethereum network will swap over to using the Beacon chain, instead of Proof of Work. There's growing consensus that the merge ought to be prioritized as the next step, see e.g. https://t.co/JlgD1S3GrY — Josh Stark (@0xstark) …

Cointelegraph is following the development of an entirely new blockchain from inception to mainnet and beyond through its series, Inside the Blockchain Developer’s Mind. In Part Four, Andrew Levine of Koinos Group discusses some of the challenges the team has faced since identifying the key issues they intend to solve. Earlier in this series I outlined three of the “crises” that are holding back blockchain adoption; upgradeability, scalability, and governance. In this post I will summarize the solutions we’ve developed to these problems, which we will be showcasing in the upcoming Koinos testnet planned for the second quarter of 2021. …

Chinese cryptocurrency miners are reportedly buying Nvidia's new laptops to mine Ether (ETH) amid the altcoin hitting new all-time highs. Nvidia’s latest GeForce RTX 30 laptops have become increasingly popular in China as a tool for mining cryptocurrency, according to several sources. On Feb. 6, a Weibo user known as BTCer posted a bunch of images showing off GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptops making up a solid crypto mining farm. “A laptop mine is up ,” BTCer noted in the post depicting dozens of laptops stacked up on shelves. Several tech media outlets including VideoCardz and Wccftech subsequently suggested …

The recent surge of Bitcoin (BTC) price has driven notable growth in the amount of electricity consumed by Bitcoin miners, spurring another wave of argument in the community over the ecology of the seminal cryptocurrency. According to the latest data from Digiconomist’s Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, Bitcoin energy consumption has been at its highest historical levels since late 2020, with the estimated annual consumption level staying above 75 TWh for a record period of time. Bitcoin is now estimated to consume around 77.8 TWh per year, which is as much power as consumed by Chile. Bitcoin’s carbon footprint — the …

Republican Rep. Tom Emmer has called for more precise tax guidelines regarding cryptocurrency earnings, after a report he commissioned from the Law Library of Congress showed a stark disparity between regulatory approaches taken by various tax authorities around the world. The 128-page study examines cryptocurrency tax laws in 31 nations, paying particular interest to their applications concerning coins and tokens earned through mining and staking. As the report notes, many countries have already established specific rules for coins earned through mining, but only five have laid down any guidance for would-be stakers. Of the 31 jurisdictions included in the study, …