Published Paper Details:

Emerging and developing quickly are cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, and as a result, the world pays attention and worries about the negative effects of cryptocurrencies on the environment. Although these cryptocurrencies seek to put into place an efficient and centralized financial system, they have been found to cause pollution and mainly through processes such as PoW mining. This paper aims at assessing the environmental sustainability of the new generation of money to understand more about its carbon footprint and power consumption. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin depend on computational muscle to solve those intricate puzzles and this process entails a lot of energy. Majority of this energy is generated from non-renewable sources, which worsens emission of green house gases globally. In this paper, an analysis of the power consumption of the most popular cryptocurrencies and their comparison with ordinary financial systems is presented. The implications include aspects of electrical power, carbon intensity, and spatial distribution of mining activities, with focuses on areas using coal and other fossil energy sources. Alongside estimating impacts of cryptocurrencies on the environment, this work also looks into new possibilities for sustainable solution. Some of the recommendations regarding Cryptocurrencies involve turning to PoS and other consensus mechanisms that allow for decreased energy consumption. Moreover, this paper also presents activities within the cryptosphere in relation to the utilization of renewable energy in mining and enhancement of energy usage in the process. The research shows that, though the environmental cost of cryptocurrencies is still high, constant development in consensus algorithms and the current use of renewables are prospects for change. In the final section, therefore, the author stresses the significance of combining the principles of environmental law and the concepts of adaptive control in optimizing a cryptocurrency's utilization of resources worldwide and of creating sustainable regulatory practices and elaborate cooperation between industries to eliminate the adverse environmental impacts of cryptocurrency mining.