Bitcoin (BTC) has brought about a revolutionary movement for finance, and a shift towards decentralisation. However, Bitcoin has been extremely detrimental to the environment – its C02 emissions in 2019 alone are comparable to the total emissions of cities like Hamburg or Vienna. To neutralise all this carbon generated, the world would need over 28 million more acres of forest. Ethical investors may be turned off by this fact, but it does not close off the whole cryptocurrency space. Here are three cryptocurrencies that are more environmentally friendly than Bitcoin: Big Eyes (BIG), Cardano (ADA), and Stellar (XLM).
XLM: A Stellar Choice
Stellar (XLM) aims to facilitate transactions between traditional financial institutions, and newer, digital currencies. Transnational and cross-asset transactions can be done more quickly, easily, and affordably thanks to Stellar. As Stellar does not have fees for using its network, it is increasingly being viewed as a serious competitor to PayPal.
Stellar’s consensus protocol is open-source and authenticates transactions through a set of trustworthy nodes. This is done instead of running the transactions through the entire network as a proof-of-work or proof-of-stake system would do, creating a much faster authentication cycle. As transactions are faster, this also keeps costs low and energy use down. Stellar is a much more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly cryptocurrency than Bitcoin and is worth having a look at.
Cardano: Raising the Stakes
Cardano (ADA) is positioned as a better, more modern alternative to Ethereum. Other developers can build tokens or decentralised applications (DApps) on Cardano’s platform thanks to its ecosystem.
Investing in the native token of an innovative ecosystem like Cardano is a solid investment, as Ether’s (ETH) and BNB’s (BNB) have proven to be wildly successful, each token sitting at spots number 2 and number 4 respectively on CoinMarketCap’s top ranking cryptocurrencies at the time of writing. Also, Cardano was founded by Charles Hoskinson, one of the co-founders of Ethereum – investors are in safe hands.
Cardano was one of the early cryptocurrencies to adopt proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms – ways of verifying transactions on the blockchain. This method of securing the network is much more energy efficient than Bitcoin’s proof-of-work system, which has produced an estimated 22.9 million metric tons of C02 emissions. To compare, proof-of-stake mechanisms are 99% more efficient, greatly reducing the negative environmental impact of cryptocurrencies.
Big Eyes: A Cat Cat-egorically Caring for Charity
Big Eyes (BIG) is an ERC20 token, meaning that it runs on the Ethereum network. Ethereum used to operate on a proof-of-work protocol like Bitcoin, but this changed in September 2021 when the whole Ethereum network adopted the proof-of-stake protocol, in what is known as the Ethereum merge. With this new protocol, Ethereum was able to match the same level of efficiency as networks like Cardano, making Ethereum a much more environmentally friendly cryptocurrency.
Additionally, Big Eyes is one of the few cryptocurrencies that are actively trying to make a positive impact on the environment. Big Eyes is focused on giving to ocean sanctuaries, to help mitigate the damage done to the marine life in the oceans. This damage would be through oil spills, plastic pollution, and overfishing. With this focus on giving back to the planet, Big Eyes is a great meme coin to pick up if you are a more environmentally-conscious investor. Not only does Big Eyes give regularly through one-off donations, such as recent donations to The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation and Sea Shepherd, but also there is a dedicated charity wallet in the cryptocurrency. This visible, public wallet will hold 5% of all tokens, to be funnelled towards charities helping marine life conservation efforts.
Final Thoughts
These three cryptocurrencies are great options for investing in cryptocurrency, if you are wanting to avoid contributing to the huge energy costs of Bitcoin. As demand goes down for Bitcoin, so will the energy expended, as it is not profitable for miners to run at higher electricity consumption levels. So doubling down on other cryptocurrencies apart from Bitcoin may be a good bet to help the environment.
Big Eyes Coin (BIG)
Presale: https://buy.bigeyes.space/
Website: https://bigeyes.space/
Telegram: https://t.me/BIGEYESOFFICIAL
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