Cornell Tech Professor Tells Congress Crypto Can Get Greener

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A Cornell Tech expert on blockchain technology testified on January 20 before a congressional subcommittee that digital currency, a notorious energy consumer, can be validated in a greener and greener way.

Ari Juels, the Weill Family Foundation and Joan and Sanford I. Weill professor at Cornell Tech’s Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, told the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, which is part of the U.S. Committee on the energy and commerce, that environmentally friendly cryptocurrency validation methods are rapidly becoming the norm.

“If my testimony adds nothing else today, I would like to emphasize a key point: Bitcoin is not equal to blockchain,” he said. “The enormous promise of blockchain technology does not require Bitcoin or its power guzzler [validation] component called “proof of work”. In fact, some of the most exciting developments in the blockchain industry are happening outside of the Bitcoin ecosystem today.

Juels spoke at the “Cleaning Up Cryptocurrency: The Energy Impacts of Blockchains” hearings, hosted by Subcommittee Chair, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) and Ranking Member, Rep. Morgan Griffith (R -Virginia).

During the hearing, Griffith noted that because more specialized computer hardware is needed to process the tokens, there is a demand for more power, which uses between 110 and 188 terawatts (one terawatt equals one trillion watts ) of global energy – “and annually, more energy consumption than some small countries,” he said.

Juels, one of two authors of a 1999 paper that introduced and formalized the term “proof of work,” which is a mathematical equation that justifies a blockchain element. It consumes a lot of electricity for computers to process.

“Fortunately, the blockchain community has devised new ways to achieve proof-of-work blockchains,” Juels said. “The main alternative, which uses much less electricity, is called ‘proof of stake’.” He said that the world’s No. 2 cryptocurrency, Ethereum, plans to adopt proof-of-stake “because almost all new blockchain systems use it today.”

During the two-hour hearing, representatives peppered Juels and other witnesses with questions.

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-New York) said New York has seen retired carbon-based power plants restart to meet the cryptocurrency’s voracious energy needs. He asked Juels about using electricity from renewable sources, as opposed to less sustainable sources.

“It was noted earlier that [cryptocurrency] mining machines are becoming more energy efficient and they absolutely are, but [it is] also an extremely misleading claim,” Juels said. “In my opinion, mining rigs are not like light bulbs in our house where efficiency means more efficiency means less electricity consumption. So to be clear, individual mining rigs are becoming more energy efficient, crypto mining as a whole is becoming less energy efficient.

Juels explained that more efficient mining equipment does not lead to a more efficient Bitcoin network, Juels said.

“[Proof of stake] essentially uses the amount of power for a large grid that would be…comparable to a small village, rather than [for] a whole nation,” he said.

“In that sense, there are better uses for the energy that is poured into the Bitcoin network,” he said. “We can redirect it to almost anything else, if we shift the energy sources used to maintain blockchains today to something that consumes a negligible amount of energy.”

In addition to his research and teaching at Cornell Tech, Juels was appointed to the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

“The Bitcoin community deserves our deepest gratitude for bringing blockchains to the world,” he said. “For the sake of the environment and our energy infrastructure in the United States, I think we need to embrace these new [validation] choice. »

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