Will XRP Be Tesla’s “Green Cryptocurrency” After Halting Bitcoin Transactions?

When it was first revealed that Tesla had bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, investors, analysts, and money managers at some of the country’s largest banks warned that the business was putting itself at risk. Others pointed out that it could damage the company’s credibility.

Owing to environmental issues, the e-car maker stopped accepting Bitcoin payments, bringing the price of the flagship coin tank down to just $45,700 before seeing a relief bounce. Bitcoin transactions are expected to use about 700 kilowatt-hours, or KWh, per transaction, according to TRG data centers. 

Other cryptocurrencies, Musk hinted, are on the agenda. Those would almost certainly be those who use “Proof of Stake” consensus mechanisms, which networks such as Ethereum have pledged to adopt due to their energy efficiency.

Of course, XRP is far from the only “green” cryptocurrency. Elrond is “the answer,” according to Elrond Network CEO Beniamin Mincu: Sustainable cryptocurrencies include Stellar, Algorand, Cardano, IOTA, and Nano. Because of its Scrypt mining algorithm, Dogecoin, the meme coin that Tesla is currently considering, is also more energy-efficient than Bitcoin.

Tesla can choose Ripple (XRP) in the short term (depending on the outcome of the SEC lawsuit), as all XRP tokens were pre-mined and XRP transactions consume only 0.0079 KWh of energy, according to TRG data centers.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and other top executives have been outspoken about XRP’s environmental credentials. Garlinghouse said in a recent interview that the token was 10,000 times more energy-efficient than Bitcoin. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has just handed “the best ad campaign” to the Ripple-affiliated XRP cryptocurrency, according to attorney John Deaton.

Meanwhile, Chris Larsen, a co-founder of Ripple, has proposed that the leading cryptocurrency should abandon the power-hungry proof-of-work consensus system in order to maintain its dominance. Ripple also entered the Crypto Climate Accord last month, which aims to decarbonize all blockchains.