XRP Is The Most Eco-friendly and Sustainable Currency

We are living in a time and age where we are able to measure our carbon footprint and how it affects the global climate. We have realized that we need to preserve this planet we call home and one way of doing so, is to make sure our day to day activities do not increase the levels of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. The latter gas is responsible for the greenhouse effect and crypto mining activities – especially that of Bitcoin (BTC) – have been put on the spotlight for consuming vast amounts of electricity and thus having a harmful effect on the environment.

It is with this background that Sid John Leopold and Niclas Englesson (Stanford and University of Stockholm respectively)  published a research paper on the carbon footprint of our money. The research included the environmental effect of the USD on the Visa network, Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and XRP. In the paper, they put forth the notion that money is all about the efficiency and cost of producing it. They stated that:

One of the fundamental properties of money is that it should be a good medium of exchange. Its purpose is to enable more efficient trade…money should make it cheaper to enable trade.

In the analysis that followed, they discovered that out of the aforementioned forms of ‘money’, XRP was the most eco-friendly as can be seen in the infographic below.

Further analyzing the screenshot above, we find that after 220 Million transactions on the XRP ledger, the energy consumed could power only 14 light bulbs. On the contrary, with the same number of transactions the BItcoin mining activities can consume enough energy to power 149 Million light bulbs. VISA is also not as efficient as we thought. For the same number of 220 Million transactions, the VISA network consumes enough energy to power 8,177 light bulbs.

In conclusion, and summing up the research paper, XRP is the most eco-friendly cryptocurrency out there that consumes less than even regular VISA transactions. This in turn means that if we were all serious about reversing climate change, XRP would be our preferred digital asset for day to day commerce.