A recent study on the energy consumption of Bitcoin transactions revealed that the digital currency may consume as much electricity as Denmark by 2020.Analysts are calling the cryptocurrency’s current consumption of energy unsustainable and suggesting that if the currency is to survive, it will have to adopt new energy-efficient technology.Researcher Sebastiaan Deetman came to the conclusion that at bitcoin’s current level of expansion, it will require 14 gigawatts of electricity to run by the year 2020 — an amount of energy equivalent to that of a small country, like Denmark.At the current time, a single bitcoin transaction requires as much electricity consumption as the daily consumption of approximately 1.6 American households.Bitcoin, which is transacted through a series of decentralized network connections, is currently consuming approximately 350 megawatts throughout the global netowrk — the equivalent of 280,000 American households.The increasing concern about energy consumption is forcing cryptocurrency advocates to reconsider Bitcoin’s internal structures.

Projects seeking to address concerns with Bitcoin’s energy consumption have begun to emerge, many of which have established proposals that could drastically decrease the amount of consumption.Deetman forecasts that an implementation of the proposals to fix the transaction ledger could lead to a Bitcoin network in 2020 that only consumes 417 megawatts, or 3% of the his original pessimistic prediction.However, even in this optimistic scenario, the mining of one bitcoin in 2020 would still require a significant 5,500 kWh, or half the annual consumption of a single American household.If Bitcoin usage continues to grow at its current rate, the worldwide Bitcoin network by the end of 2016 would require more energy consumption than is currently generated globally.The success of digital currency has always been predicated upon the ability of its designers and advocates to appropriately evolve and adapt.Although current forecasts suggest that change is necessary, Bitcoin’s foundation on progressive experimentation suggests that the cryptocurrency will live on to see it’s next chapter.

Tom Ciccotta writes about Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity for Breitbart.trade bitcoin to dogecoinYou can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or on Facebook.cox bitcoinDO YOU WANT MORE ARTICLESLIKE THIS ONE DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR INBOX?SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY BREITBART NEWSLETTER.bitcoin ako na toYES, SIGN ME UP!bitcoin volume paypalEarlier this year, Kraken in partnership with The Economist, launched a contest that posed an important question to MBA programs across the country.xe bitcoin to usdUPDATE: Winners of the Kraken contest have been announced: You have $1M to invest across bitcoin and ether.xrp to bitcoin

You cannot touch your investment for the next 5 years.How much of that $1M do you invest in each?Kraken’s essential question is, “which is the digital asset of the future?” In response, 13 teams have participated by providing a detailed paper and a short video to express their findings.Through in depth research, detailed analysis, and educated speculation, each team has presented their case for Kraken and the crypto community to assess and vote on.Submissions will be judged on the following main points: Kraken has incentivized the contest with cash prizes valued at $21,000 (USD).The 1st place winner will receive $10,000, 2nd place will be awarded $5,000, 3rd place will retain $3,000, and the People’s Choice to receive $3,000 as well.Each team was asked to quantify their results as a percentage, granting them free range in how much or how little they would potentially invest the one million into each currency.Below is a chart of the initial results of each participant.Determining the findings took shape as grading systems to which the results were scaled, tallied, and quantified.

The teams also employed financial tools such as Monte Carlo simulations, to make accurate projections of growth for both currencies over the next five years.No one team held bias over their decision making but rather employed mathematical strategies that broke down fundamental attributes such as Upon reviewing the submissions, some distinct patterns began to emerge.All teams, with the exception of Ivey Business School at Western University, (no investment recommendation) invested some value into Ether.With a low of nine percent investment from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, to a high 100 percent investment from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, all expressed some if not significant investment value in ETH.By scoring BTC and ETH through these attributes, teams were able to objectively manage data into their case studies, along with other real world factors such as commercial application, and projected growth affected by various trends in the crypto world.Although Bitcoin is currently the number one cryptocurrency today, most teams expressed Ether’s potential to replace bitcoin as the network grows.

With bitcoin having certain non-tech advantages over ETH, mainly it’s time on the market and the public’s familiarity, teams adamantly expressed their belief to place some, if not most of the speculative one million dollars into BTC, over the next five years.The reasoning behinds this stands that BTC currently has a higher monetary value over ETH and is expected to increase as much as 600 percent by 2020.The decentralization of bitcoin also played a factor in determining the growth of the currency, making it a safer bet to invest in, according to certain teams.Ether did reign champion at Worcester Polytechnic Institute with 100 percent investment, with both Porto and Rutgers Business Schools tying in 2nd place with an 80 percent investment.Teams that assigned 50 percent or more of the one million into ETH, expressed Ethereum’s value as a whole rather than as mere currency.The consensus dictates that smart contracts and commercial monetization of the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) make it a valuable commodity to invest in, an advantage over bitcoin.

BTC was viewed as the more profitable currency, however it’s limitations beyond that was shared by many of the schools.“Ethereum’s nature makes it difficult for adaptors to understand the technology and for regulators to pass [legislation]”, according to BYU Marriot School of Management.This sentiment was echoed in other papers and played a significant role in the investment strategy.For some teams, ETH’s short time in existence played a bigger role than others, while some saw the potential for Ethereum to become a major player not only as a currency, but also in part because of its unique ecosystem.Charts and diagrams broke down costs and trading trends over several years displaying exponential growth of ETH as much as 550 percent by 2020.Regardless of the final results of each team, the potential of ETH to become profitable was shared by most.We see this sentiment echoed in the paper from Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Nathaniel Popper and many others have referred to Bitcoin as the new, “Digital gold.” Ethereum on the other hand primarily seeks to provide a way to record and store transactions, and this difference is the primary reason why we believe Ethereum is the better investment over the next five years.