According to this article here the global production of crypto currencies consumes the same amount of electrical energy as entire Switzerland does. This is around
60 Terawatthours per year.
This, dear friends of modern economy, is just about the silliest and weirdest thing that happens on our planet. We are talking about energy efficiency, decarbonization, de-nuclearization, and the like and some weird guys invent currencies which need heavy number crunching in order to be created.
I understand that printing money shouldn’t be an easy task. With energy, consumption is silly. Production from renewable energies is key. So how about linking the production of digital coins to the production of solar or wind power? The more PV modules or wind mills you put up and use for energy production, the more crypto currency you have on your account?
The effect of raising marginal costs per unit will be the same as with number crunching. The more renewables we will have, the less digital coins you will get per unit energy.
But please stop this silly number cruncing-based crypto currency!!!