After studying reports on the environmental and energy efficiency of blockchain and Bitcoin, scientists have concluded that about 75% of such studies have no scientific basis. That’s why they can’t claim to be credible.
Analysts from the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL) and Saint Radbod University in Nijmegen, in cooperation with researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, published a draft of a global study on blockchain energy efficiency. According to the preprint, most previously published studies on this topic are based on unreliable data and have no scientific value.
The researchers analyzed 128 scientific papers related to the study of CO² emissions from blockchain networks such as Bitcoin. They found that about 75% of the papers simply had no scientific basis, and therefore couldn’t be credible. The main reasons for these judgments were the lack of important components for scientific papers:
- evidence of the reliability of external data (79%);
- source code to support judgments (67%);
- source of raw data (43%);
- an explicit research design (34%).
As for Bitcoin’s energy efficiency studies, the experts highlighted several critical errors:
- Most studies of this kind rely on data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI), which covers no more than 37% of all computing power on the network. Consequently, the data obtained may not be accurate.
- Some studies didn’t have verified data regarding the cost of electricity used to mine BTC, suggesting that their conclusions are inaccurate.
- Quite a few studies of carbon emission levels are based on previous reports without verifying their relevance. Thus, new studies used outdated data, making the conclusions unreliable.
The last report on the energy efficiency and sustainability of BTC mining showed that it consumed 5% more electricity and its CO² emissions increased by 33%. Meanwhile, analysts argue that Bitcoin’s energy consumption is directly proportional to BTC’s price.
