The move to Proof-of-Stake is so important to environmentalists because Bitcoin's current consensus algorithm, Proof-of-Work, requires a steady increase in the power of miners' devices and therefore leads to a steady increase in the power consumption of the Bitcoin network. The network itself is predominantly powered by environmentally damaging power plants.

In general, active criticism of Bitcoin due to the excessive costs of the cryptocurrency mining niche began in the spring of 2021. It was then that the Chinese government began banning mining in its provinces, and Elon Musk spoke about the “dark side of BTC”. Incidentally, against this backdrop, his company Tesla stopped accepting bitcoins as payment for cars, which was possible for a short time.

Selling Tesla for bitcoins

Since then, miners have taken to moving towards greater use of electricity from renewable sources. This is especially true in the US, which has become the leader in terms of Bitcoin’s share of the network’s hash rate following the Chinese ban.

Foundry, a US Bitcoin mining pool, is a case in point. The company went live in mid-March 2021, and today it is the largest pool by hash rate in the BTC network. Here is the corresponding pool ranking.

Bitcoin network hashrate distribution between mining pools

A Ripple representative decided to try to fix Bitcoin’s reputation for excessive electricity costs. However, did so with an odd option.

What is Bitcoin being criticised for?

Although Larsen presents his initiative as something good, the reaction from many in the crypto community has been very negative. Overall, the meme posted on Twitter by prominent Bitcoin fan Nick Carter speaks volumes about it. He stated that he “rejects the proposal”.

Messari analyst Ryan Selkis, the founder of Messari, called Larsen’s motives disingenuous and speculated that his real motivation was to promote XRP, the altcoin Ripple is issuing. In his tweet, Selkis called Larsen a “Judas” for making billions from the crypto market but then “betraying” Bitcoin. Here’s his retort.

Chris Larsen in a just society would be in jail for the unscrupulous misleading of investors that he and his team did regarding XRP token sales. He spends money attacking the industry that created his ill-gotten multi-billion dollar fortune. Judas.

Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen

According to Decrypt’s sources, another prominent crypto-industry figure, Jameson Lopp, has expressed doubts about the integrity of Larsen’s campaign. For example, supporters of his movement never made their proposal to change the Bitcoin protocol code on Github. Here’s what Lopp wrote on his Twitter account in an address to Larsen himself.

I could not find a request for your proposal to improve the Bitcoin code [BIP], nor do I see any discussion about it in the written developer newsletter. Please take at least some action to be taken seriously.

Jameson Lopp’s tweet.

The real surprise was the words of Niraj Agrawal, who spoke from the Coin Center analytics company, although the latter usually remains out of contention in the cryptocommunity. Here’s what Ripple co-founder Niraj’s real motives might be.

Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen is investing $5 million in an advertising campaign calling for the Bitcoin network to switch to Proof-of-Stake. Perhaps he prefers a world where CEOs of companies can centrally control the future of the cryptocurrency network.

Cryptominer

Coin Center chief executive Jerry Brito said Larsen’s campaign has too unrealistic goals. According to him, there is no way a small team of miners and activists can influence the cryptocurrency in such a global way, as it is supported by developers on a decentralized basis.

In general, one can draw the following conclusion – Chris Larsen is simply trying to get a hype and some imaginary popularity on the background of such scandalous news. His ideas are too far from reality and are unlikely to ever come to fruition as they require at least years of development and testing to begin with: just think of the protracted transition to the PoS of the Etherium blockchain.


We believe that the idea of moving the Bitcoin network to a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm is just a PR exercise that will not materialise. As we have noted many times before, BTC fans appreciate the immutability of the cryptocurrency's protocol, which continues to function in line with the ideas of its creator under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. And the move to PoS involves abandoning its developer's vision of the main cryptocurrency. Therefore, betting on such a thing doesn't make sense.

For other crypto-sphere news, stay tuned to our millionaires cryptochat. There we will discuss many other developments related to blockchain and decentralisation.