According to the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute’s report, Polkadot is currently the greenest cryptocurrency on the market. Critics often judge the high energy consumption of cryptocurrency. However, Polkadot consumes the least electricity and has the lowest carbon footprint amongst the Proof of Stake blockchains on the market. Thus, Polkadot’s unique sustainable feature allows room for more growth in comparison to its competitors.
Polkadot: An Introduction
If you are unfamiliar with Polkadot (DOT), it is made up of two units: the relay chains and the parachains. The relay chains allow the validators to stake the DOT coin. Whereas, the parachains are independent blockchains with their tokens. The parachains are responsible for the problem-solving that occurs on the Polkadot network.
However, for the holders, the DOT coin holds the most importance. The DOT coin gets the staking process moving, and is the token that is in control of the future of the protocol. The DOT coin can achieve this by allowing its holders to participate in the voting process.
Hence, currently, Polkadot ranks #10 in the CoinMarketCap due to its market cap of well over 22 billion dollars. Additionally, Polkadot has a current circulating supply of over $987,000,000. However, there is still great room for growth for Polkadot, and its current and future success could be due to its sustainability.
Polkadot’s Electricity Consumption
According to research, Bitcoin uses 1,173 kilowatts hours of electricity, or enough energy to power the state of Washington. Due to Bitcoin’s excessive energy consumption, its market value has significantly dropped. This is because of the environmental concerns of crypto enthusiasts and activists.
In comparison, Polkadot, due to its Proof of Stake blockchain, consumes less than 0.001% of the Bitcoin network’s energy.
The Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute’s report claims that each node of Polkadot consumes 0.796 kWh of electricity. Hence, this translates to Polkadot using 192.3 kWh of electricity per day, and 70,237.76 kWh of electricity per year over 297 nodes.
For a clearer picture, amongst the analysis of the 6 Proof of Stake blockchains, Solana uses the most amount of electricity. In terms of data, this value comes up to a consumption of 5,391 kWh per day. Whereas, it consumes 1,967,930.67 kWh of electricity per year. Thereby, consuming 200 times the electricity of an average US household.
Polkadot’s sustainable efficiency
In comparison to Solana, Polkadot is the most efficient blockchain network. Polkadot consumes only 6.6 times more electricity than the average US household. Thus, it leads the field in the environmentally efficient category.
The report further highlights this quality by stating that Polkadot emits only 33.36 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. For clarity, this is equivalent to 5 business class airway round trips between Munich and San Francisco.
In addition to this, Polkadot’s electricity consumption per transaction amounts to up to 17.42 kWh per transaction. In comparison to this, Bitcoin consumes 1722.24 kWh of electricity per transaction. The reason for this is that Bitcoin’s network still relies on a Proof of Work method.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Polkadot has recently grown famous for being the most eco-friendly option available in the field. We can study this through its increase in market value.
In 2022 alone, on 3rd January, Polkadot’s value was $30.05. And, from 24th January to 7th February, the DOT token increased in value by 35%, which is around $5.73.
Thus, if it continues on this track, Polkadot has a chance to be a formidable competitor to other networks on the market. Moreover, it makes its case for being a worthwhile, solid investment as well.
