Bitcoin is the flagship token of the whole crypto industry with thousands of enthusiasts hyping it up and ignoring all criticisms. However, it is hard to look away from some glaring issues that were exposed during this crypto winter. While the asset is doing fine and some investors use it to hedge against fiat currencies and other investment options, the mining industry has been struggling to keep up.
Miners have been hit by a multitude of problems. The war in Ukraine affected energy prices across the globe with some brutal increases coming when the actual snow starts falling in Europe. Many miners are preparing to move from the UK and France. However, large mining facilities cannot just pack and go elsewhere.
Texas was hit by a massive heat wave that exposed weaknesses in the electric grid of the state and forced it to rethink its approach to issuing mining licenses. The situation is dire for many miners since the difficulty is approaching its all-time high while energy prices are not going down forcing many “farmers” to liquidate their BTC positions just to cover their growing expenses.
At the same time, people concerned with ecology are pressuring miners and BTC enthusiasts to use greener sources of energy which is easier said than done. Energy consumption that dwarfs some countries and a large carbon footprint are two issues that haunt the whole Bitcoin community and warn some investors to abstain from buying these power-hungry tokens.
The savior of the industry in terms of emissions and power consumption is Ethereum with its merge with Beacon which will change the consensus mechanism from energy-intensive PoW to more efficient PoS. It is a move that will dramatically reduce the amount of energy required to run the network while providing even more scalability options to apps deployed on L1.
We believe that the Ethereum merge is exactly what the industry needs to survive the crypto winter and come out stronger. People must see that cryptocurrencies can be beneficial without consuming massive amounts of energy. It will calm down loud critics until Musk and Saylor find ways to make Bitcoin eco-friendly by promoting green energy among BTC miners.
