Cryptocurrencies, digital assets and ESG

Because of the amount of electricity used to mine/create cryptocurrencies and to maintain their networks, the environmental impact is often heralded as a major disadvantage of this asset class. It is easy to understand such concerns, given that Bitcoin generated over 86million tons of carbon emissions in 2022, which would require over 430million trees to remove such emissions. However, such statistics ignore the fact that many of the Bitcoin miners are now actually using renewable energy from geothermal, solar, hydro and wind farms and the % of power from such sources rose in 2022 by 3% to 59.4%. The carbon footprint of Bitcoin is likely to reduce even further as we see Bitcoin miners using other forms of power generation, such as nuclear which produces no carbon. In the US, a Bitcoin mining firm called TeraWulf is to use electricity from Pennsylvania's Susquehanna nuclear power station and will be the first nuclear-powered Bitcoin mine in the country. Meanwhile, Hive, a publicly-quot…