Focus of the Month: Are Bitcoins environmentally friendly? Is crypto payment becoming increasingly common around the world?

Focus of the month

• Bitcoin Mining Council survey estimates a 56% sustainable power mix in Q2
• $6 Billion NCR Opens Bitcoin Purchases To 650 Banks And Credit Unions

USDC Stablecoin Issuer Circle will go public through Concord Acquisition Corp (NYSE: CND), a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC). According to Circle, the deal should value the company at $4.5 billion. Once the transaction is closed, Circle is expected to trade on the NYSE under the symbol “CRCL.”

Environmental issues have always been one of Bitcoin skeptics’ most justifiable arguments. Due to the energy waste from Bitcoin mining, many business magnates do not hold an optimistic view about Bitcoins. Even Elon Musk has announced that Tesla will not consider opening Bitcoin transactions unless miners use a reasonable proportion (~50%) of renewable energy.

Viewpoints raised by cryptocurrency supporters this month: The Bitcoin Mining Council pointed out that Bitcoin’s energy consumption only accounted for 0.117% of global energy consumption. The computing power for using sustainable energy arrived at 56% in the second quarter. The United Nations also published an article that believed blockchain technology, with its transparency, can become a powerful tool in managing climate change-related issues. Furthermore, many developers are currently working on solving energy issues. For example, Ethereum’s Proof of Stake (PoS) can reduce 99.95% of the energy cost. Hopefully, future blockchain technology will be able to fulfill sustainable development in the global economy.

Despite the voices against Bitcoins, cryptocurrency payment has become increasingly more prevalent at the same time. American payment company NCR collaborated with 650 American banks to provide cryptocurrency transactions to 24 million clients through its payment App. The Twitter founder’s payment company Square also began offering cryptocurrency payment many years ago.

Other payment companies are not to be outdone. Paypal allows users to pay in BTC, ETH, BCH, LTC to over 29 million merchants worldwide. Visa not only accepts USDC payment but also issues cards in collaboration with cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com. Mastercard also accepted cryptocurrency payment further in advance, working with Gemini for card issuance. Apple Pay and Google Pay also support Coinbase credit cards. As major payment companies continue to join the market, sooner or later, cryptocurrency will become an indispensable medium of transaction in daily life.

Finally, let’s take a look at start-up teams in Taiwan. The blockchain cybersecurity team CYBAVO won first place in cybersecurity at the 2021 SelectUSA Investment Summit, a high-level business event held by the United States Department of Commerce. Steaker had the pleasure to collaborate with CYBAVO in asset custody services to protect users’ rights and interests hopefully. The rising star Perpetual Protocol V2 officially launched “Curie.” It is named after Monsieur and Madame Curie, expecting that sustainable agreements will become one of the basic agreements in future DeFi. Perpetual Protocol also made the TWDFI 2 unstoppable. Many users demand Steaker to launch more DeFi solutions. What do you think about it?