1. Protocols

1. Protocols:

Information on the climate impacts of the protocols used by digital assets. This includes the effect of cryptocurrencies' consensus mechanisms on energy usage, as well as potential mitigating measures and alternative mechanisms of consensus and the design tradeoffs those may entail. For example, many digital assets—including those that make use of smart contracts—use or are looking into less energy-intensive consensus mechanisms than “proof of work.” Information is sought related to the benefits and drawbacks of those alternative mechanisms, as well as their different energy consumption profiles.

Proof of Work

As previously demonstrated in the response brief section, Bitcoin's ability to turn renewable energy into a monetary asset via Proof of Work mining is a core feature that makes it possible to pay for the expansion of solar energy generation and storage around the world.

Without the Proof of Work mining protocol, the large incentive to transition to 100% renewable energy would not be possible. Proof of Work is imperative for the long-term benefits of the bitcoin network to be realized. And from a security perspective, the bitcoin network would be more susceptible to attacks from malicious hackers or bad actors without Proof of Work. To spend any time discussing Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake is to miss the bigger-picture opportunity entirely.

Lightning

Additionally, a bitcoin layer 2 protocol worth discussing is the Lightning transaction protocol that has been operating for several years already. This protocol handles the majority of small value transactions on the bitcoin network. It's important to recognize that Lightning has already made transactions infinitely more scalable on the underlying Bitcoin Proof of Work protocol.

Millions or billions of transactions can occur inside of a single Proof of Work blockchain transaction. Misleading critics have regularly missed the discussion of this very important protocol layer on Bitcoin. No more energy is used in a lightning transaction than a ping in any internet connection, it's essentially zero. This means that Bitcoin's energy used per transaction will approach zero as the network grows larger.