I remember reading a study comparing it to the credit-card system (which obviously is only a small part of the overall fiat currency system), but compared to crypto-currencies the entire global credit-card system had only negligible power consumption if I recall correctly.
Yeah, If you look at a naive “cost per transaction” of credit cards it seems unbeatable. but that’s only just part of the puzzle. You need to factor in big banks and a bunch of other stuff to start getting the full picture. I’d argue that all armored trucks cost the world more in energy than cryptos, but I haven’t actually crunched the numbers =/
I remember reading a study comparing it to the credit-card system (which obviously is only a small part of the overall fiat currency system), but compared to crypto-currencies the entire global credit-card system had only negligible power consumption if I recall correctly.
Yeah, If you look at a naive “cost per transaction” of credit cards it seems unbeatable. but that’s only just part of the puzzle. You need to factor in big banks and a bunch of other stuff to start getting the full picture. I’d argue that all armored trucks cost the world more in energy than cryptos, but I haven’t actually crunched the numbers =/
I don’t think cash is really a fair comparison though. Physical cash is IMHO needed regardless of how you manage the digital currency transfer.
But sure, loads of bank buildings and customer centers etc. do also have an impact on energy use.