After Mozilla Abandoned PoW Cryptos Citing Energy Concerns, Wikipedia May Follow

cryptonews.com:

Energy consumption of Proof-of-Work (PoW) cryptoassets has once again become a hot topic as companies start ditching cryptos that use this energy-intensive mechanism for validating transactions and creating new tokens.

Last week, Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser, shared an update regarding its crypto donation policy following its "discussion about cryptocurrency’s environmental impact" with the community.

"Mozilla will no longer accept 'proof-of-work' cryptocurrencies, which are more energy intensive," the company said following its review of PoW cryptos, adding that these cryptos can significantly increase their carbon footprint due to their energy-intensive nature.

On the other hand, the company said that it will resume accepting proof-of-stake (PoS) cryptoassets for donations. 

"Mozilla will develop and share a list of cryptocurrencies we accept by the end of Q2 2022," the company said.

Mozilla, which has been accepting crypto since 2014, published its climate commitments in early 2021, pledging to reduce its "emissions significantly and mitigate what we can’t avoid." To honor its commitment, the company halted crypto donations earlier this year and started a review of digital assets.

The PoW mechanism is energy-intensive since it awards network participants, called miners, for spending computational power to solve puzzles and keep the network safe. The model incentivizes miners to bring more and more computational power to the network, consuming more energy.

According to Digiconomist, Bitcoin (BTC), the biggest PoW crypto, consumes 204.50 terawatt-hours (TWh) of energy per year, which is equivalent to the power consumption of Thailand. Moreover, a single Bitcoin transaction is calculated to spend 2181.06