The elephant in the room of the blockchain industry is energy usage. Financial pundits love to compare its intake to national consumption. For example, earlier this year Forbes pointed out that Bitcoin’s proof of work mechanism uses the same amount of electricity in a year as the entire nation of Switzerland. Ars Technica compared Bitcoin usage to the nation of Denmark. But it’s not just Scandinavian countries. QZ cited a study that equated Bitcoin mining to the annual energy consumption of Ireland. Cryptovest says the appropriate comparison is Singapore.
The reason for the changing nations is that the amount of energy cryptocurrency consumes is growing… exponentially. And there’s one thing everyone agrees on, which is that the cryptocurrency market is on an unsustainable trajectory. As noted in 4NEW’s Whitepaper, in September of 2017, one Bitcoin transaction consumed 7.5 daily household’s worth of energy. By December it was up to 10.5 homes worth. As of March 31st, 2018, the usage equates with 30.5 households. Popular Mechanics notes that Bitcoin’s energy usage has doubled in 2018 and may double again before the year is over. The cryptocurrency industry simply must reform in order to be a viable technology.
Enter 4NEW.
One of the most heralded blockchain concepts of the year seeks to revolutionize not only the blockchain industry but also the way we think about energy and waste. 4NEW claims its project will tackle three major global problems: energy shortfall, waste surplus, and of course, the huge amounts of energy cryptocurrency transactions use. This is where 4NEW and its KWATT token enter the fray of a cryptocurrency market battling for legitimacy as a real-world application.
The most basic core premise behind 4NEW is waste-to-energy treatment plants. Simply put, these power plants harness waste, convert it to energy, and then distribute that energy. A more scientific way of stating it is that waste product and organic materials are refined in high-pressure combustion chambers and turned into energy; this energy is either distributed to the national grid or integrated into an on-site crypto mining farm. The cost of producing the energy is offset by waste collection services and selling byproducts, which also helps mitigate pollution and environmental hazards.
At the North American Bitcoin Conference, 4NEW President Saransh Sharma explained the energy crisis the crypto market faces and invoked some thermodynamic mind jazz, reminding the 4,800 attendees that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. His company seeks to redirect and harness spent energy—waste—and use it to make blockchain applications sustainable and eco-friendly.
His stellar ICO team also boasts the use of “tokenized electricity,” by which KWATT coins (4NEW’s cryptocurrency) can be applied to crypto mining transactions, traded to pay for electricity bills, or utilized for “global healthcare and money transfer services.” The waste-to-energy plants will feature on-site crypto mining farms through which the company can “standardize and normalize” the transactional costs related to various cryptocurrencies.
Sharma believes 4NEW is the first infrastructure-related application in the blockchain space and will lead to widespread adoption of sustainable cryptocurrencies. Let’s hope his energy pays off.
4NEW’s KWATT initial coin offering (ICO) has already raised $43.9 million at the time of this article’s publication and ends on August 10th.
Disclosure: 4NEW is a sponsor of Anti-Media.
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