Abstract
Next to climate change on the list of challenges faced by humankind in today’s technological age is energy management. While “smart” ideas continue to gather momentum as some of the ways earmarked to combat the menace of a changing climate, coupled with efficient management of energy, research and development in the blockchain is not retracting, recently giving rise to digital currencies capable of fueling massive energy consumption via mining of “crypto-coins”. Given that sustainability is a crucial goal in the design of smart cities nowadays, there are currently no assurances of sustainable cities where cryptocurrency mining is at full scale. Nevertheless, alternative energy sources may come to the rescue in no distant time. In this paper, we contextualize energy-use in smart cities through mining of virtual currencies, in order to predict whether or not smart cities can truly be sustainable if crypto-mining is sustained. An attempt is also made to emphasize the possible ways of reducing energy use and all activities involving digital currencies by seeking to replace “Proof of Work” (PoW) with improved alternatives.
Highlights
Nowadays, energy is a highly coveted resource, so that it raises a lot of interests on the discourse about energy supply, management and use
The reason for this is that Bitcoin being the earliest cryptocurrency type relies on the concept of “Proof of Work” (PoW), a consensus that depends on heavy input of resources [5], energy [3,6]
Regardless of current rates of energy consumption and threats posed by virtual currency mining to modern cities, smart cities could remain sustainable if research and development, as well as investments are channeled towards smart-monitoring grid systems which are based on renewable energy sources, and capability of controlling and managing power usage
Summary
Energy is a highly coveted resource, so that it raises a lot of interests on the discourse about energy supply, management and use. By adopting the above energy-related intervention, sustainability of cities can be achieved even when activities of cryptocurrency operators are ongoing within a city This is because, it becomes really difficult for miners to conceal their energy usage, especially as the overall smart system exposes every hidden power use. Greener and safer environments are encouraged using these means It is note-worthy to stress that Blockchain technology has only been adopted in solving a number of problems in smart cities [37] there are no current studies that link cryptocurrency mining to smart cities, i.e., research is yet to provide a foundation for improved energy management as imposed by mining of crypto-coins in smart cities. In situations where there are strict regulations due to the perceived high consumption of energy by the process of mining, the law may possibly take its course on offenders as seen in the case of Chelan Country, Washington D.C [38,39]
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