FTX and BitMEX to channel part of fees to carbon-offsetting

Cryptocurrency exchanges FTX and BitMEX plan to donate a small percentage of transaction fees to organizations that offset carbon emissions.

FTX Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried calculated Bitcoin’s carbon footprint based on electricity costs and network fees. He estimates that for every dollar spent on PoW mining, the amount of carbon offset required costs $0.0026.

The exchange decided to allocate $0.0026 from every dollar of transaction fees paid by its clients.

FTX estimated that in 2021 they would spend $150 000 on carbon offsets from $60 million in fees. Given the uncertainty of the calculations, the exchange operator decided to allocate an additional $1 million to environmental organizations, including Cool Earth.

BitMEX supported the initiative. It also decided to donate “no less than $0.0026 for every dollar of fees.”

We’re committing to carbon neutrality and joining @SBF_Alameda‘s initiative on this. It’s a start, and we encourage the crypto industry to get behind us: https://t.co/iv4Gnzv0Ei pic.twitter.com/hhGrB6fWAz

— BitMEX (@BitMEX) May 21, 2021

“We’re not ashamed to copy-paste this positive initiative,” BitMEX said.

The exchange operator did not disclose the total amount of donations.

According to the latest data from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, annual electricity consumption by the Bitcoin network stands at 123.77 TWh and exceeds the UAE and Pakistan’s figures for 2019.

Data: University of Cambridge.

On May 13, Tesla stopped accepting the first cryptocurrency because of ‘uneco-friendly mining’. Following this announcement, the price of digital gold briefly fell to $30,000.

Earlier, a group of Chinese and British economists calculated that by 2024 Bitcoin mines in China will consume over 296.59 TWh of electricity and will surpass the Philippines in greenhouse gas emissions.

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