It is no news that the Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining protocol that helps the blockchain technology in cryptocurrency to accurately verify transactions, uses a lot of energy.
Little wonder many new cryptocurrencies are developing more eco-friendly ways to secure their transactions.
One of the popular eco-friendly ways is the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol which reduces the amount of computing power that can be expended.
PoS allows only the people who can stake to participate as opposed to PoW that uses every single miner for each transaction on its large network which leads to huge energy consumption.
These 10 eco-friendly cryptocurrencies are committed to reducing the environmental impact of crypto transactions:
IOTA
IOTA uses an alternative form of technology called Tangle and as such, doesn’t require miners.
IOTA also has low energy requirements because it is sustained by smaller devices.
Cardano
Cardano is the most well known eco-friendly crypto.
It runs on Ouroboros, a secure Proof-of-Stake blockchain protocol.
This saves significant amounts of energy because users will have to buy tokens in order to join the network.
Chia
Chia is another good example of sustainable cryptocurrencies that are designed to be less energy intensive and this is because of its farming process.
Chia coins can be farmed on the hard drives of computers – a protocol known as Proof-of-Space – and the unused space can be utilized for plots.
The computer then does the plotting and starts farming Chia when the software is fully downloaded.
This makes it easier for home users to farm Chia because it doesn’t rely on huge amounts of electricity as mined cryptos do.
Nano
Even though Nano runs on a Proof-of-Work protocol, it uses an Open Representative Voting system to reduce energy use and increase efficiency. This makes it eco-friendly.
Tezos
Tezos is a programmable blockchain that can support applications and smart contracts and the reason why it made it to the list is because it runs on a variation of the Proof-of-Stake model to secure its network, thereby making it eco-friendly.
BitGreen
This eco-friendly crypto was launched as an eco-friendly alternative to bitcoin.
It rewards users for actions that include volunteering, drinking sustainable coffee and car-pooling, in a bid to encourage positive environmental behavior.
Solarcoin
Solarcoin is an independent and global sustainable cryptocurrency that was created to promote solar energy creation by rewarding generators with solar coins.
Solar energy generators can claim one coin for every megawatt hour created by solar technology.
Hedera Hashgraph
The energy-efficient Hedera uses the same no-mining technology as Nano which allows for quick transactions, very low fees and most importantly, Low energy usage.
It is supported by IBM, Google, Boeing, and other Fortune 500s.
Polkadot
Polkadot is based on a Nominated Proof-of-Stake (NPoS) protocol that is based on holding coins within the network instead of energy-intensive mining.
It is designed as a multi-chain network that can link different blockchains.
Stellar
Stellar Lumens (XLM)’s unique consensus model for validating transactions requires only a small number of distributed nodes to confirm each transaction and as such, does not have the huge energy demands of some blockchain networks.
These are just a few of the eco-friendly cryptocurrencies you can find in the crypto market.
Know any other eco-friendly cryptocurrencies you think we should add? Make your suggestions in the comment section.
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