David McNew/AFP via Getty; ARK Invest; Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty; Bitcoin; Samantha Lee/Insider
Bitcoin’s energy usage has become a lightning rod amid the rising popularity of ESG investing. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest explains why they think this will lead to more renewable and solar mining. Ark analysts also break down why they remain highly convicted in bitcoin and ethereum. See more stories on Insider’s business page.
It is hardly unexpected for bitcoin – one of the best-performing assets in the past year – to clash with the increasingly popular trend of environmental, social, and governance investing.
Since Tesla chief executive Elon Musk backed out of accepting the cryptocurrency as payment on concerns over the massive amount of energy required for mining bitcoin, the digital token’s energy consumption has become a lightning rod for controversy.
The latest calculation from Cambridge University’s Bitcoin Electricity Consumption index suggests that bitcoin consumes 111.51 terawatt-hours per year, which is more than the annual energy consumed by countries such as the Philippines and the Netherlands.
That staggering figure has certainly raised some eyebrows, but it also begs the question of
