Bitcoin (BTC) Will Never See $69,000 Mark Again – Says Kyle McDonald – Coinpedia – Fintech & Cryptocurreny News Media
Bitcoin mining is highly targeted for its increasing energy use. The surge may be approaching a tipping point where the crypto platform will need to become “cleaner and greener” to prove a true game changer.
However, Bitcoin is not getting much attention from investors – a main reason for this is the upcoming Ethereum merger.
Recently, Kyle McDonald told CoinDesk TV’s ‘First Mover’ that the Bitcoin network may be ‘regulated away’ due to energy consumption.
Kyle McDonald is an independent researcher. He predicts that the Bitcoin network could be “regulated away”, leading to a significant price drop.
McDonald went on to suggest that people should now start selling Bitcoin. The reason is that after the Ethereum blockchain made a shift to a significantly less energy-intensive method of validating transactions, called “proof-of-stake,” investors and regulators may realize that the energy-intensive method used by Bitcoin, called “proof- of-work,” was never really necessary.
McDonald said the “climate crisis” and Bitcoin’s “massive use of energy” are harmful. He said that “Bitcoin doesn’t have the coordination like Ethereum to leave proof of work, it could be the first to be regulated away.”
Crypto’s energy consumption has become a major concern and a bone of contention for environmental activists and governments alike. McDonald added that Bitcoin will never see $69,000 again. Bitcoin (BTC) had traded near this mark in November last year.
Ethereum’s upcoming upgrade, which is essentially a software update called “the Merge”, is expected to happen this month, a major advantage of which is that it will not require as many computers to keep the Blockchain running.
McDonald added that “the possibility of Ethereum cutting energy costs by 99.95% is highly realistic.”
“When you go from a system that’s about generating as many random numbers as quickly as possible with 10 million graphics processing units worldwide, to a system that runs on a few thousand computers that are pretty low-power, it’s going to make a big difference.” Graphical processing units (GPUs) are used in cryptocurrency mining.
To track Ethereum’s energy movement, McDonald has created the Ethereum Emissions tracker, which takes a “bottom-up” approach. According to McDonald’s website, it does not take into account Ethereum’s price or electricity price.
He said, “I start with the hashrate, then I look at the hardware and make a technical argument for how much power needs to be used.”
NFT risk
McDonald points out one prominent risk, which is related to non-fungible tokens (NFT). He said, “There is a good chance that some miners will switch to proof-of-work temporarily after the merger happens.”
He added that there is a possibility that even if the miners switch, there may be duplicate NFTs for a short period of time on another chain. So if it happens, it can “potentially even diluting their values.”
The world’s largest NFT marketplace – OpenSea, so it would only support the proof-of-stake chain and added that it has been preparing for the transition to ensure the process goes smoothly.
Why is the upgrade Necessary?
Shockingly, a single Ethereum transaction can consume as much electricity as the average American household uses in more than a week. Bitcoin’s energy consumption is even worse!
The world’s largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, consumes an estimated 150 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, which is more than the entire country of Argentina with a population of 45 million. Producing this much energy releases about 65 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, which is similar to the emissions of Greece, making crypto a significant contributor to global air pollution and climate change.
