Type: Prelims Only

Bitcoin prices are rising these days and so will be its mining. As cryptocurrency will become mainstream, its carbon footprint cannot be ignored.

What are Cryptocurrencies?

Cryptocurrency

Global crypto market

• In 2019, the global cryptocurrency market was approximately $793 million.
• It’s now expected to reach nearly $5.2 billion by 2026, according to a report by the market research organization Facts and Factors.
• In just one year—between July 2020 and June 2021—the global adoption of cryptocurrency surged by more than 880 percent.

Carbon footprints of Bitcoins

• Increasing popularity of cryptocurrency has environmentalists on edge, as the digital “mining” of it creates a massive carbon footprint due to the staggering amount of energy it requires.
• A/c to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, the carbon footprint of Bitcoin is equivalent to that of New Zealand.
• Both emit nearly 37 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

What is Mining?

• Mining is a process in which computational puzzles are solved in order to verify transactions between users, which are then added to the blockchain.
• In simpler terms, the works are created, or “minted,” through a process called proof-of-work (PoW), which establishes its unique identity.

How do cryptocurrencies create such a footprint?

• Unlike mainstream traditional currencies, bitcoin is virtual and not made from paper or plastic, or even metal.
• Bitcoin is virtual but power-hungry as it is created using high-powered computers around the globe.
• Bitcoin is created when high-powered computers compete against other machines to solve complex mathematical puzzles.
• This is an energy-intensive process that often relies on fossil fuels, particularly coal, the dirtiest of them all.

Conclusion

• What this means is that, unlike traditional currency or gold, Bitcoin is not solely a settlement layer, not solely a store of value, and not solely a medium of exchange.
• This makes Bitcoin’s relative energy consumption productive in comparison to comparative sectors, given its robust potential uses.
• The promise of such an endeavor offers hope for a more sustainable cryptocurrency future.
• Whether this will make much difference to the climate crisis in light of government and industrial inaction remains to be seen.

Back2Basics: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

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Recent work by researchers at the National Centre of Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, has thrown light on what stimulates the synapses (connection of nerve cells) to form.

What are Synapses?

• Neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain connect by means of junctions known as synapses through which they transmit signals.
• There are two types of synapses – chemical and electrical:

(1) Chemical Synapse

• In this, there is a space of about 20 nanometres between two neurons, and the way they communicate is this: One neuron converts electrical signal into chemical signals.
• This chemical is released into the synaptic space and the receiving neuron converts the chemical signal back into an electrical signal.

(2) Electrical synapse

• In these synapses, the two neurons have a physical connection and the conversion of electrical to chemical need not occur, and they communicate directly.
• Electrical synapses are like a physical wire, communication is faster but they are also fewer in number.

Observing these synapses

• Researchers from TIFR-National Centre of Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, have chosen Zebrafish as a model organism to study this process.
• Zebrafish are transparent and neuron development in larval zebrafish can be observed from day to day by injecting a dye or by engineering the fish to express fluorescent proteins.
• It was observed that electrical synapses are formed before chemical synapses, they are like a blueprint in which neurons make a handshake. This results in the making of chemical synapses.
• Research on organisms such as leeches showed that if you remove electrical synapses, the chemical synapses do not form.
• However, the mechanism of how it happens in higher organisms such as vertebrates was not known.

What induces these synapses?

• The group observed that knocking out a particular protein known as the gap junction delta 2b (gjd2b) in the cerebellum of zebrafish affected levels of the enzyme CaMKII.
• Levels of CaMKII were seen to increase in the Purkinje neurons in the cerebellum.
• These neurons and the cerebellum itself control coordination of movements in the organism.

Why study this?

• In humans for example, excess abuse of alcohol leads to damage of these cells, which results in lack of coordination in movement.
• The cerebellum shows an evolutionary continuity in all vertebrates, so, too, the Purkinje neurons.
• Even though fish and humans diverged from a common ancestor about 500 million years ago, the cerebellum has been evolutionarily conserved.
• While zebrafish have about 300-400 Purkinje neurons, humans have thousands of these.

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