Not content with fighting the American regulatory Securities and Exchange Commission over the nature of the XRP token, the heads of Ripple have picked a fight with bitcoin (BTC) advocates – attacking the Bitcoin network’s often-maligned proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism.
In an interview with TechRadar, the Ripple Chief Technical Officer David Schwartz claimed that the PoW has been touted as a “secret sauce” but showed “cracks” right from the outset, adding that the design of the Bitcoin PoW consensus mechanism was “such that true decentralization and disintermediation was never a possibility.”
He said,
“It’s just not ideal as a payments mechanism [because] of PoW energy costs/carbon dioxide emitted – estimates show a weighted average carbon intensity of 480-500 [grams of carbon dioxide equivalent] per kWh.”
“It’s great to see more and more individual players taking action to address climate change/use renewables for mining, but we need consensus (no pun intended) across the entire industry to make all cryptos 100% renewable,” he added.
Bitcoin defenders reacted with incredulity, with one observer quipping in a Twitter reply,
“A lot of energy concerns directed at Bitcoin start with the presupposition that it is useless. A trillion dollars in market cap disagrees. Little concern is given to worldwide washing machine energy usage, for example, because we understand the value.”
At the time of writing (08:32 UTC), BTC trades at USD 59,256 and is up by 3% in a day and 13% in a week.
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Learn more:
– XRP Trades Lower While Ripple CEO Slams Bitcoin and Ethereum
– This Is How Satoshi Nakamoto Defended Bitcoin Mining & Converted A Skeptic
– Ethereum Moves Ahead With Plans for Earlier Transition to Proof-of-Stake
– Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Aims for All-Time High; Hashrate Already There
– Bitcoin Mining in 2021: Growth, Consolidation, Renewables, and Regulation
– Bitcoin Miners Buy Oversupplied Energy, Turn To Renewables – Nic Carter
