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Getting filthy rich with crypto doesn’t necessarily make you ideologically wed to it.
The German Green Party has received €1 million in Bitcoin from Moritz Schmidt, a software developer who wants to rid of his newfound wealth, Die Zeit reports.
This is the biggest individual donation that the party known for its environmental advocacy has received since its inception.
Schmidt—who resides in the northeastern German town of Greifswald—believes that his Bitcoin profits are “underserved wealth,” according to the party’s spokesperson.
Being himself a Greens member, Schmidt wants to use his wealth for something that reflects his views.
The software engineer claims that the flagship cryptocurrency is environmentally harmful due to its energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus algorithm.
The Bitcoin energy debate
Bitcoin now consumes more power than American Airlines and Argentina, which makes it a target for climate activists.
However, in its recent report, Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest points out that Bitcoin is far more efficient than banking and gold mining:
Traditional banking consumes 2.34 billion gigajoules (GJ) per year and gold mining 500 million GJ, while Bitcoin consumes 184 million GJ, less than 10% and 40% of traditional banking and gold mining, respectively.
Earlier this month, CoinShares, ConsenSys, and Ripple joined the Crypto Climate Accord to completely decarbonize blockchains by 2025.