PoS vs. PoW: Can Blockchain go green ?

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Individuals and corporations can be reluctant to use the blockchain technology for ecological reasons. This point is reasonable, noting a high amount of energy needed to process transactions on the blockchain. Most of these fees are often unavoidable, needed to maintain the current blockchain network.

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The real first blockchain was created to support a cryptocurrency token like Bitcoin, and did not initially plan for this many users, and transactions. This case is also valuable for tokens like Ethereum, where the current network faces many issues. These days, current networks won’t be able to sustain the current demand for decentralized apps, tokens, and information systems for corporations. With this, comes environmental concerns, where many stakeholders are reluctant to use technology. A single ETH transaction currently consumes 48,14 kWh, representing about one day and a half of energy consumption in an average American household. Noting the current volume of daily transactions, alternatives should be proposed. It is worth noting these ongoing issues can be solved, with brand new blockchain technologies, such as, Polkadot, Solana, etc.  For example, Polkadot members roughly estimated that the current network uses 0.8 GWh per year, showing sustainability in the long run. The Metaverse is also currently built on Blockchain, reinforcing the need for accurate frameworks that will support the technology moving forward. We can now find a variety of Blockchains on the market, all working to provide solutions for users, corporations, and a variety of different industries.

Proof-of-Stake vs. Proof-of-Work

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Proving one's stake in a cryptocurrency, often known as proof of stake (PoS), is a technique for attaining distributed consensus on the blockchain of the cryptocurrency. When compared to Proof of Work (PoW), which requires users to run hash algorithms multiple times or solve math puzzles using algorithms in order to validate electronic transactions, Proof of Stake (PoS) requires users to prove ownership of a specific amount of cryptocurrency (their "stake" in the cryptocurrency) in order to claim the ability to validate additional blocks in the blockchain while also receiving the reward, if one is available. Peercoin was the first cryptocurrency to use Proof of Stake. Proof of Stake (PoS) will replace Proof of Work (PoW) in the case of the Ethereum cryptocurrency when it becomes fully operational (PoS).

First and foremost, there is a significant disparity between the amount of energy that a system uses and the amount of carbon that it emits. While determining energy consumption is relatively straightforward, extrapolating the associated carbon emissions requires knowledge of the precise energy mix. The composition of different energy sources used by the computers mining Bitcoin, which is not known without knowing the precise energy mix. In comparison to coal-powered energy, one unit of hydroelectric energy will have a much lower environmental effect than the same unit of hydroelectric energy.

ALGORAND (ALGO): Energy consumption per transaction negligeable (no official numbers). It is however worth noting that Algorand is one of the most ecological blockchains in our current ecosystem.

BINANCE SMART CHAIN (BNB): Negligible, numbers not available.

BITCOIN (BTC): 707 KWh per transaction

CARDANO (ADA): 0.5479 KWh per transaction

DOGECOIN (DOGE): 0.12 KWh per transaction

ETHEREUM (ETH) : 62.5 KWh per transaction

IOTA (MIOTA): 0.00011 KWh per transaction

SOLANA (SOL): Negligible, numbers not available.

POLKADOT (DOT): 0.8 GWh per year

POLYGON (MATIC): 0.00079 TWh annually

TEZOS (XTZ): 0.00006 TWh per year

Bitcoin (PoW)

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Bitcoin was the very first blockchain-based protocol. Its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, described it as an alternative way to make payments through a peer-to-peer network, with no need for a third party.  Bitcoin only utilizes blockchain to create a transparent ledger of payments; however, blockchain may theoretically be used to immutably record any amount of data items. Currently, many initiatives are attempting to use blockchains in a range of methods to benefit society beyond merely documenting transactions, such as providing a safe means to register  elections. Because of the irreversibility of the ledger, fraudulent voting would become much more difficult. A voting system, for example, may be set up such that each citizen of a nation receives a separate coin or token. Each contender would then be assigned a unique wallet address, and voters would transmit their tokens of the candidate they desire to vote for. In terms of consumption, the total annualized carbon footprint of Bitcoin is estimated to be 95.90 Mt CO2 of Carbon footprint, 201.89 TWh of electrical energy, and 28.75 kt of electronic waste. The network is more and more active, creating a need for alternatives to support cryptocurrency transactions.

Ethereum 

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Ethereum is one of the most developed blockchain technologies accessible today, having been founded by Vitalk Buterin. It is extensively utilized across numerous industrial use-cases and is known for its comprehensive smart contracting features and flexibility. It has the most use-cases accessible right now (50 percent or more in our sample set). Ethereum has a robust online support network, as well as regular product upgrades and additions, thanks to Hyperledger Fabric.

The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA), a non-profit organization that links Fortune 500 companies, startups, academia, and technology suppliers with Ethereum subject matter experts, currently has over 250 members. Despite its extensive usage in business, it's vital to remember that Ethereum is basically a permissionless (or public) platform built for broad consumption rather than limited access (typical requirement for privacy requirements in enterprise use-cases). It's also built on PoW (proof-of-work), which isn't the quickest (perhaps leading in latency difficulties) and is an energy hog. In future versions, it may switch to the fast PoS (proof-of-stake) consensus method.

Hyperledger

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Hyperledger is an open-source platform that supports the construction of distributed ledgers based on blockchain technology. Hyperledger is a group of people working together to develop the frameworks, protocols, tools, and libraries required to construct blockchains and associated applications. Since the Linux Foundation launched Hyperledger in 2016, companies including IBM and Intel, Samsung, Microsoft, Visa, American Express, and blockchain startups like Blockforce have contributed to the project. Banking, supply chain management, internet of things (IoT), manufacturing, and production-related sectors are all part of the partnership. Hyperledger is a platform that connects many distributed ledger frameworks and libraries. A company may, for example, employ one of Hyperledger's frameworks to increase the efficiency, performance, and transactions of its business operations.

Polkadot

Polkadot is designed to link private and consortium chains, public and permissionless networks, oracles, and yet-to-be-created technologies. Through the Polkadot relay chain, Polkadot supports an internet where separate blockchains may communicate information and transactions in a trustless manner. Polkadot allows creating and connecting decentralized apps, services, and organizations simpler than ever before. We want to liberate society from its dependency on a flawed web in which huge institutions cannot abuse our trust by allowing entrepreneurs to create better alternatives.

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Solana

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Solana is a blockchain platform for decentralized and scalable applications. An open-source project, Solana is now managed by the Solana Foundation in Geneva, developed by Solana Labs in San Francisco. In comparison to other blockchains like Ethereum, Solana is substantially quicker in terms of transaction processing and has much cheaper transaction costs.

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This blockchain aims to show that when combined to construct a blockchain, there is a collection of software algorithms able to remove software as a performance barrier, allowing transaction throughput to expand proportionately with network capacity. Solana's design meets all three criteria for a blockchain: scalability, security, and decentralization. On a normal Gigabit network, Solana's design provides a theoretical top limit of 710,000 transactions per second (tps) and 28.4 million tps on a 40-Gigabit network.

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