Ripple Labs has said XRP is much more energy-efficient than Bitcoin as it was designed with sustainability in mind.
Ripple Labs has indicated that XRP is 57,000 times more environmentally friendly than Bitcoin (BTC). The company said this in a recent blog post titled: “The Environmental Impact: Cryptocurrency Mining vs. Consensus”.
It comes as XRP prices gained over 3% in the last 24 hours. At the time of filing this report, XRP price was at $0.206573 (+3.71%).
In the report, Ripple considered the sustainability of money. The company also said that most currencies in use aren’t eco-friendly.
From fiat to digital assets most of the currencies in use had some form of environmental impact. The report goes on to allude that the invention of cryptocurrency was hypothetically meant to solve some of the environmental problems.
The problem with cryptocurrencies, however, is that the energy consumptions vary wildly. It depends on the mechanisms of implementation.
Proof of Work Is Energy Intensive
The report alluded to the fact that Proof of Work (PoW) is an energy-intensive process. It also goes further to say that miners compete to outdo each other in the process. The report also indicated that the environmental impact of a Bitcoin (BTC) miner cost from $1,500 to $6,000 a year.
Ripple says in the report:
“Bitcoin consumed 1.5 times the yearly energy consumption of Ireland.”
Ripple also indicated that as the mining puzzle gets more complex higher amounts of energy will be required.
Bitcoin energy use is said to be at 60,890 TWh. This new low is from highs of 77,207 TWh as of May. The Bitcoin (BTC) halving event occurred at around this time.
XRP, however, runs on a different mechanism. The Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm (RPCA) uses consensus as a method of preventing double spending on its ledger.
XRP Ledger Uses Consensus Protocol, It Consumes Less Energy Than Bitcoin
In the report, Ripple said that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) achieves consensus via the unique RPCA. The XRPL uses a “distributed agreement protocol” to confirm transactions. It occurs using a “super-majority” agreement for all transactions.
Ripple also said in the report that XRP “was designed with sustainability in mind”. Ripple’s XRP processes don’t have the energy needs of Bitcoin or Ethereum.
The report alluded that the various problems posed by mining are one of the reasons why adoption why cryptocurrency adoption is facing hurdles.
In one example the report reads:
“For example, for every 1 million transactions, XRP could power 79,000 lightbulb hours. In contrast, for every 1M transactions, Bitcoin could power 4.51 billion lightbulb hours.”
The report continues:
“This means that the energy consumption of XRP Is 57,000x more efficient.”
It may be one of the effects of the implementation of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs).
Proof of Work (PoW) and its associated mining activities are the first proof-of-concept that cryptocurrencies work. As the crypto space continues to improve, we shall see other methods of implementation.
This time, they will most likely be environmentally friendly!
Christopher Haruna Hamman is a Freelance content developer, Crypto-Enthusiast and tech-savvy individual. He is also a Superstar Content Developer, Strategy Demigod, and Standup Guy.
