Bitcoin - A Boon to Economy or Bane to Sustainability

Abstract

Since the formation of Bitcoin in 2009, various private digital currencies have been presented. Bitcoin is by a long shot the best one. It has been getting a great deal of media consideration, and its all out market worth has arrived at 20 billions USD in March 2017. More importantly, a number of central banks started recently to explore the adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies for retail and large-value payments. Bitcoin is a digital currency based on a peer-topeer payment system managed by an open source software  and characterized by lower transaction costs, greater security and scalability than fiat money and no need of a central bank. In spite of criticisms about illegal uses and social consequences, it is attracting the interest of the scientific as well as economic community. Be that as it may, notwithstanding Bitcoin’s worth, the paper clarified, physical stores have been delayed to acknowledge it as a technique for installment. Subsequently, a few lookers are getting to be critical about whether this tech-trendy person digital money, which everybody has known about however the vast majority don’t genuinely comprehend, will ever supplant conventional cash. Only one exchange can use as much vitality as a whole family unit does in seven days, and there are around 300,000 exchanges each day. That vitality request is usually met through petroleum product vitality sources, which, alongside contaminating air and water, radiate ozone harming substances that reason environmental change. At the end of the day, Bitcoins are adding to the warming of the climate without giving a noteworthy open advantage consequently. Some Bitcoin lovers guarantee that it will in the long run become a standard money, and that the cryptogovernance framework whereupon it’s manufactured could really support the earth. In any case, the Bitcoin market is unstable, its future dinky. Off-the-rack PCs used to be incredible enough to mine Bitcoins. Presently, on the grounds that the math issues are so perplexing, they should utilize particular equipment called Application Specific Integrated Circuit, or ASIC. These mining machines are huge and run hot, and the individuals who use them—either Bitcoin mining organizations or Bitcoin devotees cooperating—utilize a great deal of power to do as such. Organizations and associations that mine bitcoin will once in a while have a huge number of these machines pressed into far reaching distribution centers. Hence, the present study is an attempt to define and evaluate the current trends of the literature concerned with the sustainability of bitcoin, considering the environmental impacts and economic aspects. The study is divided into four parts – first part explains the concept of bitcoin in detail with its history. The second part of the study details the statement of the problem. The third part deals with results and discussions and the last is the concluding part. In the results and discussion part, the data dealing with trends in the value of bitcoin in USD and in Indian markets are exhibited. The main exchanges dealing with bitcoin in India are then given and the number of bitcoins available and their market capitalisation worldwide is shown.

From the analysis, it is very clear that the value of bitcoin has tremendously increased over the period of time. One of the main allegations against the bitcoin trading is its fluctuating volatility depicted. It’s because of this issue, that bitcoins are considered to be very dangerous commodity to be traded. Also, form the point of sustainability, it emerges that the transition of the whole monetary system in the new cryptocurrency will result in an unacceptable amount of energy consumed to mine new bitcoins and to maintain the entire virtual monetary system, and probably bitcoin will remain a niche currency.