On Sustainability Of Mining Crypto Currencies And Why It Matters

The Proof of Life experiment — sending a crypto currency transaction on the Burst blockchain using an off-grid solar powered portable Burst node/miner and a radio has ignited some sparks and drawn the attention of the public. The motivation of the experiment, as well as the intentions and circumstances of its execution have been explained by the author in

What pleases me most is that sustainable development is on almost everybody’s agenda now — Maurice Strong

The problem of the increasing energy consumption on the Bitcoin blockchain has been hovering in public for a while now, addressed both by environmentalists and the crypto-sphere. While environmentalist publications compete in “which country’s electricity consumption shall we compare the Bitcoin blockchain to today”, the crypto-sphere, loyal to the alpha-blockchain and to the most influential crypto currency tends to be rather apologetic, substantiating their position with anything from “

An another approach to solving the problem of energy consumption on the blockchain is the facilitation of the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus, instead of the energy-hungry Proof of Work (PoW), as Ethereum plans to do. It is beyond dispute that PoS requires considerably less energy than PoW. However, PoS comes with its own set of problems — mainly related to decentralization, or the lack of it, especially when the distribution of coins is done through the now fashionable ICO, enabling individuals and business entities to obtain considerable amounts of staking coins before the blockchain is even operational.

The most defeating part of the problem, however, seems to be the fact, that many authors from both eco- and crypto- worlds find that the enormous energy consumption on blockchains is a necessity, with no alternative other than PoS.

Which isn’t the case.

Split a piece of wood and I am there, lift a stone and you will find me.

It doesn’t really take splitting logs and lifting stones — a somewhat heated argument (for all the wrong reasons) at the r/amateurradio subreddit was sufficient to draw the attention of several crypto and tech websites which published stories about the Proof of Life experiment. The stories as well as the preceding argument focused mainly on the fact that the crypto currency transaction was completed using a radio — which isn’t the practice, but it isn’t really new, as it has been done before. What, however, is the news is that a portable Burst node and miner powered by a solar battery were used — making this the first ever off-grid crypto currency transaction.

The Burst blockchain uses the Proof of Capacity (PoC) consensus algorithm, which utilizes hard drives for mining the crypto currency native to it — the Burstcoin. The power consumption of hard drives is considerably lower compared to that of ASICs and GPUs, which are used for mining PoW coins. In combination with the formidable transaction capacity of the Burst blockchain, the energy expense of a transaction executed on the Burst blockchain is around 400.000 times lower than that of a transaction executed on the Bitcoin blockchain. The low price and accessibility of hard drives, on the other hand, makes the Burst blockchain highly decentralized, as miners don’t need specific equipment or considerable investments to start securing the network. Thanking to features of Burst, it was possible to set up the portable node and miner using a solar-powered battery and a hard drive, with the radio as means of communication. The portable Burst node/miner is capable of validating transactions and forging blocks off-grid, which is of great significance in circumstances described in the Proof of Life article — such as natural disasters and war. The Burst wallet and miner software, run on (solar) battery powered portable devices can create a network of nodes capable of extending and securing the chain. In areas affected by natural or man-made disasters or in adversarial circumstances with no (safe) access to the usual power and communication infrastructure, this capability might matter.