Cryptocurrency Mining from an Economic and Environmental Perspective. Analysis of the Most and Least Sustainable Countries

Sergio Náñez Alonso, Javier Jorge-Vázquez, Miguel Ángel Echarte Fernández and Ricardo Francisco Reier Forradellas
Additional contact information
Javier Jorge-Vázquez: DEKIS Research Group, Department of Economics, Catholic University of Avila, 05005 Ávila, Spain
Miguel Ángel Echarte Fernández: DEKIS Research Group, Department of Economics, Catholic University of Avila, 05005 Ávila, Spain
Ricardo Francisco Reier Forradellas: DEKIS Research Group, Department of Economics, Catholic University of Avila, 05005 Ávila, Spain
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Javier Jorge Vázquez Sr.

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 14, 1-22

Abstract: There are different studies that point out that the price of electricity is a fundamental factor that will influence the mining decision, due to the cost it represents. There is also an ongoing debate about the pollution generated by cryptocurrency mining, and whether or not the use of renewable energies will solve the problem of its sustainability. In our study, starting from the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), we have considered several determinants of cryptocurrency mining: energy price, how that energy is generated, temperature, legal constraints, human capital, and R&D&I. From this, via linear regression, we recalculated this EPI by including the above factors that affect cryptocurrency mining in a sustainable way. The study determines, once the EPI has been readjusted, that the most sustainable countries to perform cryptocurrency mining are Denmark and Germany. In fact, of the top ten countries eight of them are European (Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Austria, and the United Kingdom); and the remaining two are Asian (South Korea and Japan).

Keywords: sustainable mining; cryptocurrency mining; energetic sustainability; sustainability; sustainability of cryptocurrencies; cryptocurrencies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/14/4254/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/14/4254/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:14:p:4254-:d:594340

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().