What people get wrong about BSV and the environment

One of the key presentations was given by Professor Robert Lee, Chairman of the Australian Blockchain Metaverse Association, who talked about the future of t

Written by

Ryan Brothwell

Published On

28 Sep 2022

In July, Bitcoin Association partnered with the Elas team for the inaugural Enterprise Blockchain Conference in Brisbane, Australia. The summit featured various presentations from speakers involved with BSV blockchain and the surrounding ecosystem.

One of the key presentations was given by Professor Robert Lee, Chairman of the Australian Blockchain Metaverse Association, who talked about the future of the crypto-mining industry in Australia, including green energy and government regulation.

‘Mining is the process by which new bitcoins are entered into circulation. It is also the way the network confirms new transactions and is a critical component of the blockchain ledger’s maintenance and development,’ Lee said.

‘It is performed using sophisticated hardware that solves an extremely complex computational maths problem. The first computer to find the solution to the problem receives the next block of bitcoins and the process begins again.’

Lee unpacked the various regulatory stances around the world – notably in China and parts of the USA which have banned crypto mining due to concerns around energy costs.

He also unpacked the current regulatory stance in Australia, noting that it is typically more friendly than other regions but that it is an active consideration for lawmakers. While it can be seen as a potential point of contention in the country, Lee noted that crypto-mining is actually valuable to Australia’s electricity balance and that several of his mining farms generate their power in environmentally-friendly ways such as solar.

Why BSV is better than its blockchain competitors

Lee also noted that not all mining and blockchains are built equally, with BSV blockchain a standout compared to other ‘competitors’.

BSV blockchain’s greater energy efficiency is apparent even if the hash power and transaction volume of all networks were equal, as it is a function of a core design difference between itself and the other protocols: the removal of arbitrary restrictions on maximum block size.

BSV blockchain is built on the protocol most aligned with the original vision of Bitcoin laid out by creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Subsequently, it places no limit on the maximum size of blocks processed or ‘mined’ by the network, and therefore offers unbounded scaling and the ability to process an unlimited volume of transactions.

BSV is more efficient due to block size and the number of transactions (throughput) currently available on the network and the limitations of other protocols. So long as the size or number of transactions on the BSV network exceeds the limitation of the other protocols, BSV is the most efficient in this group.

Considering the environment

While there is a broad misconception that Bitcoin is harmful to the environment, several businesses are using the blockchain to directly address issues such as global warming.

In his presentation, Daniel Keane, Co-Founder & Managing Director at Predict Ecology, explained how his company uses the blockchain as an auditable, immutable and scalable digital ledger of ecological data.

Predict Ecology focuses on developing blockchain records for research purposes, with scientists able to track long-term environmental data in an easy-to-understand way because of the power of the blockchain.

Keane noted that while global warming and climate collapse are globally recognised issues that need to be addressed, it can be incredibly difficult to find accurate scientific data that has not been compromised in some way.

Predict Ecology and BSV blockchain help address these issues by providing an immutable source of information for people to log and reference Environmental Impact Assessments, he said.

Keane also gave a detailed breakdown of how his team collects environmental data using IoT devices and provided a walkthrough of the development tools behind Predict Ecology.

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