The bitcoin gold rush comes with dirty baggage.<br /><br />Mining the virtual currency and its transactions are estimated to cause more pollution than a small country every year – a fact that companies and proponents are beginning to wake up to.<br /><br />Elon Musk recently tweeted that Tesla will no longer accept it as payment and he believes the cryptocurrency “has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment."<br /><br />What’s the problem, you may ask?<br /><br />Bitcoin’s virtual, so it’s not like it’s made from paper or plastic, or even metal.<br /><br />Bitcoin is created when high-powered computers compete against other machines to solve complex mathematical puzzles.<br /><br />It’s an energy-intensive process that often relies on electricity generated with fossil fuels.<br /><br />Greater demand and higher prices have led to more miners competing to win coin, using increasingly powerful computers that need more energy.<br /><br />- Reuters -
