The Bitcoin market has had a wild ride over the past year. Prices have plummeted, sharply recovered, and then plummeted again over the last ten months, and the future is uncertain for cryptocurrencies overall in the context of an ambivalent regulatory and policy landscape. Amidst all the chaos, one thing about Bitcoin has been steady since the beginning: its ever-expanding energy use and resulting carbon footprint.
The cryptocurrency world has been in crisis recovery mode since the downfall of FTX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, toward the end of last year. Since then, regulatory bodies around the world have escalated a crackdown on digital currency firms, while other sectors worried about “crypto contagion” leading to a widespread economic fallout. Despite the extreme crypto-anxiety and price volatility of the last year, however, Bitcoin has managed an impressive rebound, recently staying steady at about $26,000 – for now. But just when things have been looking up, crypto markets took an unexpected dive this week, and experts…