With its most recent anti-Bitcoin marketing effort, environmental advocacy group Greenpeace USA has once more stoked debate among the Bitcoin community.
Recently, it used images that were projected onto notable buildings in New York City to highlight the many environmental effects of major financial institutions’ involvement in Bitcoin, particularly JPMorgan Chase & Co. (Chase) and BlackRock.
The projections, which debuted on July 18, verified that Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, and Jamie Dimon, CEO of Chase, both had pink laser eyes, a characteristic of Bitcoin maximalist profile pictures.
These audacious images acted as a sharp warning of the impending environmental catastrophe and immediately connected the danger to those financial juggernauts’ Bitcoin holdings and activities.
The environmental advocacy group famously referred to Bitcoin as a “weather bomb,” criticizing its significant energy usage, which is primarily made up of fossil fuels like coal and petrol. Its most recent research indicates, alarmingly, that several coal-fired electricity plants that were originally slated for retirement have been revived or kept active to power Bitcoin mining operations.
The Bitcoin community quickly retaliated, with prominent individuals attacking Greenpeace’s position on Twitter and other social media sites.
Many group members argued that Bitcoin’s energy use is necessary for the safety of the community.
Greenpeace responded by citing a recent research on significant losses caused by cryptocurrency breaches and arguing that cryptocurrencies don’t actually need to need a lot of energy to function well. Niko Jilch, a bitcoiner, on the other hand, pushed Greenpeace to cancel its account.
This latest debate comes after Greenpeace USA called for a switch from proof of work (PoW) to proof of stake (PoS) in the Bitcoin consensus mechanism in March 2023.
The Bitcoin community strongly disagreed with the notion, with some arguing that Greenpeace should fork the Bitcoin code themselves if they want such a change and others comparing Bitcoin’s energy usage to that of clothes dryers.
Greenpeace has been promoting a more energy-efficient consensus mechanism through a campaign called “Change the Code, Not the Climate,” in collaboration with Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen. The Larsen-funded marketing campaign aims to put pressure on the Bitcoin community to adopt a far less energy-intensive system.
