The biggest cryptocurrencies have been in and out of the news all year, with huge rises and falls in price and uncertainty around the future with possible changes to transparency coming in the near future for Europe – one of the biggest mentions however has come from blockchain technologies, cryptocurrency, and the impact it is having on the environment. But is cryptocurrency something that could become green or will those more environmentally conscious be quick to dismiss changes as continued concerns around the environmental impact continue to mount and continue to have an impact on the overall outlook for different cryptocurrencies.

The first mention came from the launch of NFT’s earlier in the year, initially gaining a huge amount of traction and generating some huge sales, the digital collectors wallet based on blockchain assets certainly found some time in the spotlight – but support quickly changed once a few posts and reports came out suggesting the potential energy concerns with minting an NFT came at the same cost as an average persons electricity usage for a period of a few days. Whilst there had been no solid figure to suggest this was true, it certainly had an impact on the NFT market and w as the first call for pause in the market.

Following this, as Bitcoin and other coins have continued to find mainstream usage particular for online sites with some at maximumcasinos.com being the biggest, a potential link to Tesla and the purchase of electric vehicles led to a lot of excitement until Tesla pulled back with environmental concerns being the core reason why, once again bringing uncertainty into the market as uncertainty around any potential future continue to change, particularly if environmental concerns continue to be a reason why larger companies aren’t willing to invest into crypto as a whole.

There have been some suggestions that alternative forms of energy could work to make crypto green but given the huge demand of energy required particularly from the industrial sized mining farms that have been seen in images emerging from countries like China during their crackdown and closure of big locations, it certainly won’t be easy to meet the demand. It may come down more to more solid figures around just how much energy is used in comparison, as current figures could certainly just be misinformation, but if it is true that crypto does have a larger environmental impact, it may be difficult to overcome.

It does provide an opportunity for a new coin to come along with a green focus, as current mining options do not necessarily lead to sustainability. As it’s still a relatively new market, there’s a lot of room for change, but it’s just whether or not the change will come quickly enough.