Ripple’s Co-founder Says Bitcoin Miners Should Switch to Proof of Stake Network to Save Environment

The environmental concern of mining digital assets like Bitcoin will forever elicit different shades of responses from members of the crypto community.

While some schools of thought believe that mining the digital asset would promote the use of green energy, others like Chris Larsen remain concerned about the environmental impact of these mining activities on our global ecosystem generally.

Ripple Founder Advises BTC Miners to Switch to a POS Network

Ripple’s co-founder, Chris Larsen, in a new blog post has urged the growing list of Bitcoin miners in the United States to embrace a Proof of stake (POS) network so as to cut down the environmental impact of Bitcoin’s proof of work model which currently uses the same amount of energy as “12 million US homes per year.”

According to Larsen, Bitcoin mining firms like BIT Mining, Riot Blockchain and Marathon Digital Mining could open themselves up to gaining more reward if they embrace a POS as they  would be “gaining the same revenue with substantially less operating costs. More importantly, they would gain valuable rights to all future rewards that could be held and tokenized.”

Larsen’s Changing Tune

This is not the first time that the famed Ripple co-founder is driving a narrative around other crypto assets. In previous times, Larsen opined that the Chinese government could choose to seize control of the blockchain of the flagship digital asset because mining activities of the coin were mostly dominated by the Chinese.

At one time, he also said that the provision of regulatory clarity to Bitcoin and Ethereum by the United States government was a favor to the Chinese government because the networks of both assets were controlled by Chinese miners.

However, with China’s anti-crypto stance driving many of the miners out of its jurisdiction, he is now citing the environmental impact of these activities.

POW Vs POS

A Proof-of-Work network is a type of consensus mechanism that requires higher computational power for Bitcoin mining. For example, the current Bitcoin mining consumption is much higher than the energy use in Malaysia per year. Meanwhile, Proof-of-Stake requires holding coins. The more coins a miner holds the more mining power it possesses.