How Are NFTs Bad For The Environment?

If you haven’t heard by now, NFT or non-fungible tokens have taken over the entire web. Everyone is talking about it. Celebrities are buying up NFTs and using them as their profile pictures. Artists big and small are selling their art as NFTs. Many people are making millions from NFTs (and losing millions as well). NFTs are now everywhere so we must talk about the impact it has, not on us (that’s another topic), on the environment. How are NFTs impacting the environment?

If you don’t know what NFTs are, check out this article I wrote on NFTs. What are NFTs and all the basics? 

While you’re at it, why not check out this article on whether you can make money flipping NFTs if you’re interested in it. Can you make money flipping NFTs?

Notable moments in NFT history

Take a look at this picture, this is the Nyan Cat. It’s been around on the internet for more than 10 years. Well, it sold for $621,408. 

How about this? This is a picture of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet on Twitter. If you don’t know who Jack Dorsey is, he’s the co-founder of Twitter. He sold this screenshot of his first tweet for nearly 3 million dollars. 

What do you use to buy NFTs? 

Well, people buy NFTs using cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Solana. People also use a wallet such as Phantom and Metamast to store their cryptocurrencies to make transactions on platforms such as Solsea, MagicEden, and Opensea. 

NFT’s energy consumption 

Now let’s talk about why NFTs are bad for the environment. Well, NFTs are bad for the environment because they take up a lot of energy with each transaction. In order to carry out the transactions, high-end computers are required and these computers cost a lot of energy. These computers are responsible for selling, trading, and storing cryptocurrencies. 

In fact, if you combine all the energy from these transactions together, it can be as much if not more than the annual energy usage of a small country. 

To give a more concrete example, the energy used by Ethereum is more than how much energy is consumed in a small country like Nigeria. 

How about Bitcoin? Well, the annual energy usage taken up by Bitcoin is more than what Argentina uses in a year. And did you know that Argentina is the 8th largest country by land area in the world? 

Why is using lots of energy bad for the environment? 

More energy usage means more carbon emissions. We need fossil fuels to give us energy. It’s possible to produce energy from renewable energy sources such as solar panels but that has not been widely adopted. Most of the energy we use comes from non-renewable energy sources. 

The artist who stopped selling NFTs due to environmental concern

There’s a French artist by the name of Joanie Lemecier who stopped selling his NFTs because he was concerned with how how much energy selling just 6 of his NFTs take up. 

He realized that selling just 6 of his NFTs would take enough energy to power his studio for 2 years in just 10 seconds. 

Are there any alternative NFT platform that cost less energy?

Yes, there are other ways around this problem of NFT transaction using up lot of energy in a short period of time. It’s called sidechains. Sidechains take up less energy when selling and buying NFTs making it more environmentally friendly. 

Should cryptocurrency computers run on renewable energy? 

This is what a lot of environmentalists are advocating for. Computers that deal with cryptocurrency exchange and NFT transactions should only be powered by renewable energy or at least in large powered by renewable energy. This is the only way to sustain the NFT and cryptocurrency world.