Greenpeace USA printed an artwork piece referred to as the “Skull of Satoshi” to depict the “ravenous consumption of fossil fuels” by the flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC).
The piece includes shadowy coders below a cranium fabricated from laptop {hardware} with a backdrop of assorted industrial buildings associated to vitality manufacturing.
The Cranium of Satoshi is the most recent in Greenpeace’s now year-long “Change the code” marketing campaign to vilify Bitcoin by portray it as an environmental hazard because of the consumption of electrical energy in mining.
Greenpeace supposed for the artwork set up to develop into a logo of the environmental destruction attributable to BTC; nevertheless, the piece appears to have had the alternative impression on the group.
Elevated to meme standing
Proponents of Bitcoin largely appear amused by the piece and are shortly making it a meme inside the group. Some have even adopted it as their new profile picture.
Crypto Twitter’s evaluation revealed that the {hardware} used within the cranium was severely outdated and largely employed tech that had nothing to do with Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.
Moreover, the buildings depicted within the piece are Nuclear reactor cooling towers, which emit water vapor and haven’t any antagonistic impression on the surroundings in comparison with fossil fuels.
Others joked about buying the skull to make use of as ornament of their mining setups.
Change the code
Greenpeace first started crusading in opposition to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in 2022 by launching a marketing campaign to “change the code” of Bitcoin to take away its proof-of-work (PoW) validation mechanism.
The marketing campaign’s aim is to push builders to make Bitcoin a proof-of-stake (PoS) coin as a substitute — like Ethereum, which transitioned from PoW to PoS in 2022.
Bitcoin at present requires astronomical quantities of computing energy to validate blocks on its community as miners have been competing for the BTC rewards for effectively over a decade now. The aggressive nature of mining is a double-edged sword because it will increase the general safety of the blockchain nevertheless it additionally requires increasingly vitality to maintain the system working.
Nevertheless, because of the rising prices of electrical energy internationally lately, miners are more and more turning to off-grid options — a few of which make use of inexperienced vitality manufacturing like photo voltaic.