According to Jamie Coutts, a crypto market analyst at Bloomberg, over half of the energy powering the Bitcoin network today is derived from sustainable sources. This observation challenges the notion that the growing Bitcoin network inevitably leads to a proportionate increase in its environmental impact.
Coutts believes that Bitcoin's unique ability to grow without significantly increasing its carbon footprint could make it an attractive option for large-scale institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds.
One key point highlighted by Coutts is the high energy costs associated with Bitcoin mining, which account for more than half of the operational expenses. Miners naturally gravitate towards the most cost-effective energy options, inadvertently increasing the network's consumption of green energy as a result.
It's worth noting that just a few days before Coutts' statement, reports emerged indicating that newer Bitcoin miners were increasingly turning to alternative and more energy-efficient sources.
However, the sustainability of Bitcoin's energy consumption remains a subject of debate. Data from Cambridge University, last updated in January 2022, suggests that only about 37.6% of Bitcoin's energy comes from sustainable sources. In contrast, climate tech investor and advocate Daniel Batten has argued that the actual figure is above 50%. He has also predicted that the Bitcoin network will become carbon-neutral by the end of 2024 and could remove ten times the amount of emissions it produces by the next decade, marking a significant environmental milestone for the technology.