Green Coins a Move Toward Sustainable Digital Currency and an Alternate for Reducing Carbon Footprint of Bitcoin

Abstract

This research demonstrates the environmental impacts of Digital Currencies (DC), particularly focusing on Bitcoin's (BTC) energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) process as well as a fundamental expectation for sustainable alternatives, which can be termed as Green Coins (GC) which are expected to be able to maintain the benefits of BTC, while generating little to no negative impacts on the environment. Bitcoin is estimated to consume about 150 TWh annually, a measure comparable to that of a mid-sized country, while also generating 60 to 90 million metric tons of$\text{CO}_{2}$emissions and about 30,000 metric tons of electronic waste (e-waste) through deliberate accelerated hardware obsolescence. On the other hand, GC tends to use more efficient proofs such as Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proof of Space-time (PoST) and examples include Ethereum following its 'Merge' estimated a reduction of over 99 % of energy use and Dogecoin has and even lower environmental impact compared to BTC. Using data sets from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) and Digiconomist, this study quantifies Bitcoin's carbon footprint and tracks the trends from 2017 to 2025, through more extensively investigating its sustainability profile relative to its GC counterparts. Findings reveal Bitcoin continues to have high energy use and e-waste, peaking in 2021, while both Ethereum (ETH) and Dogecoin (DG) had significant gains in sustainability improvements. Addressing scaling, security, and regulatory issues, the paper highlights the potential of sustainable financing within the digital financial markets to drive Green technologies, which is increasingly important for aligning cryptocurrency financing with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) parameters, providing a way to continue to innovate while decarbonizing digital financing.