The NFT craze infuriates me, although it is great for empowering artists and supporting a vital part of society during a devastating pandemic. The cost of this support is much higher. NFTs have a catastrophic impact on the environment, the true scale of which we cannot even begin to understand.
I am not a crazy person for you by any stretch of the imagination. I am, however, very interested in art. The NFTs got me very interested from the point of view of art at the beginning. Having dug the rabbit hole of the NFTs, I was shocked to discover the environmental impact of these seemingly good modern platforms, and so will you. You do not need to be a technician to understand the severity of the damage that NFT is causing.
Before going any further: artists are not to blame here. Those who manage to sell their works of art are benefiting financially from NFTs. Last year, the arts industry suffered incredibly. I encourage supporting artists by all means. I am opposed to harming the planet in the process.
How do popular cryptocurrencies work and why are they harmful?
The cryptocurrency on which most NFT sales are based is called Ethereum. The price of Ethereum is related to the quantity of supply / demand that exists. When a currency grows, there is a lot of demand, leading to a sudden increase in transactions. Physical energy must be used to complete all transactions. The more popular a currency is (the higher the demand), the more energy is used in processing transactions. This is called Proof of Work. To make any transaction with Ethereum, the system must show that it worked. The higher the value of each transaction, the more work needs to be done. The more people board the advertising train, the more popular the currency is. The more popular, the greater the number of transactions. The greater the number of transactions, the more energy is used. This is an endless loop.
An average Ethereum transaction consumes 35 kWh of energy. To give you an idea, it is how much an EU citizen consumes in 4 days. This is already incredibly high. But it gets louder and more depressing.
What are NFTs?
The idea behind NFTs is to create a unique token that cannot be exchanged, divided or altered in any way, hence the non-fungibility of the token. So an NFT is a collectible, like a collectible dollar that was issued once, kind of like buying an expensive painting. It has value as an item. You cannot pay with a painting for ice cream. An NFT is a digital version of this.
Energy consumption of NFTs is catastrophic
The trick with NFTs is that they are unique. The more artists create NFTs (create digital assets for their works of art), the more transactions take place. In addition, each bid, canceled bid, purchase, etc. it is also a transaction. This suggests that an NFT is very heavy on transactions. And due to the nature of an NFT transaction, it consumes much more energy compared to a normal cryptocurrency transaction. In numbers: 82 kWh, with 48 kg of CO2 emitted. This is more than 2.3 times that of a normal transaction.
You already know that an NFT transaction consumes a lot of energy. But an NFT sale from start to finish can involve hundreds of transactions. It is estimated that an average NFT consumes 340 kWh of energy and emits 211 kg of CO2. This compares to flying for two hours or driving 620 miles. Worse yet, most NFTs will never be sold, causing artists to lose money while irreversibly harming the planet.
And the artists?
Some anonymous case studies will be helpful.
Let’s say that an artist sold about a small number of works of art, each with a few hundred editions, totaling 800. In a period of 3 months, these sales totaled 138,272 kWh of energy and 85 tons of CO2. This is comparable to flying for 825 hours and consuming electricity for 40 years.
Another artist is more popular. They made more works of art and sold around 1,500 editions. During that period, they consumed 263,538 kWh and, as a result, emitted 163 tons of CO2. This compares to the total energy consumption of an EU citizen for 77 years and flying for 1,500 hours. If you want to boil a kettle, you will have to boil it 3.5 million times.
You can interpret these values as you wish. But the energy consumption of NFTs is incredibly high, unnecessarily high.
And the platforms?
Mar Aberto, one of the most popular platforms for digital art, carried out (as of March 31, 2021) 869,077 transactions, resulting in 67,824,222 kg of CO2 emitted. Another popular platform, the Nifty Gateway, went through 130,904 transactions, resulting in 15,382,066 kg of CO2. The nine most popular NFT platforms went through 1,606,435 transactions in total. This emitted 115,811,072 kg of CO2. That is 115,811 tons. You would have to fly for 146 years without stopping to issue that amount. An EU citizen would have to use electricity for 83,266 years to emit that amount.
Can something be done?
The short answer is yes, there are ways to make NFTs without harming the environment on a biblical scale.
The solution that has been in development for the past seven years is Ethereum 2.0. He uses a different method called Proof of bet. The mining capacity of a new block is not linked to energy, but to the amount of currency already present. Current news suggests that ETH 2.0 will be released to the general public in the coming years. Hopefully, the sense of urgency created by the sudden jump in NFT’s popularity will accelerate the launch of ETH 2.0. However, once launched, ETH 2.0 will only allow for greener and faster transactions. A better solution than ETH 2.0 is also in development.
That solution is Efinity. A recently introduced NFT chain (part of the futuristic Polkadot network) is created with the aim of minting NFTs in the heart. Efinity claims to be cheaper for breeders and much cleaner for the environment. For end users, Efinity will allow for quick transactions (no more than six seconds) and, what is even more exciting, there is no need for a blockchain wallet. This improves accessibility for all users and allows NFTs to grow even more while being sustainable. This growth will be encouraged by the ease of use of Efinity for a new user. The general idea of NFT is great; however, the execution is terrible. Efinity intends to resolve this.
The CEO of Enjin (the company that develops Efinity) says:
NFTs should be for everyone. Building with Polkadot will allow us to deliver an affordable and scalable solution that empowers everyone to participate in the emerging NFT economy. Thinking about the end user, Efinity offers a fun, simple and accessible experience for everyone.
Final reflections
For now, NFTs are truly deadly to the planet. Until the release of ETH 2.0, or better yet, Efinity, I discouraged NFT transactions. There are more environmentally friendly ways to support artists, such as donations or auctions.
Please do not harass artists using NFT platforms. Instead, share this article to raise awareness of the urgent issue. I condemn anyone who used the information here to attack an artist.
What are your thoughts on this? Should NFTs be protested, despite what they offer to artists? Should we boycott NFTs? Let me know in the comments; I always read them.