<p style="text-align:justify"><strong>In Brief:</strong></p>

<ul>
<li>The cryptocurrency sector provides valuable opportunities and benefits, but has major, overlooked environmental impacts.</li>
<li>Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, has concerning impacts on climate, water, and land.</li>
<li>Bitcoin price and energy use for Bitcoin mining are highly correlated.</li>
<li>A 400% increase in Bitcoin’s price from 2021 to 2022 triggered a 140% increase in the energy consumption of the worldwide Bitcoin mining network. </li>
<li>China was the world’s top Bitcoin miner in 2020–2021, followed by the USA, Kazakhstan, Russia, Malaysia, Canada, Germany, Iran, Ireland, and Singapore.</li>
<li>In addition to the top 10 Bitcoin mining nations, Sweden, Norway, Singapore, and the UK are among the world’s top contributors to the carbon, water, and land footprints of Bitcoin. </li>
<li>67% of the electricity consumed for Bitcoin mining in 2020–2021 was produced from fossil energy sources.</li>
<li>As the primary energy source for Bitcoin mining, coal provided 45% of the overall electricity used for Bitcoin mining globally during the 2020­–2021 period.</li>
<li>Bitcoin mining emitted over 85.89 Mt of CO<sub>2</sub><sub> </sub>during the 2020–2021 period.</li>
<li>The greenhouse gas emissions of Bitcoin mining alone could be sufficient to push global warming beyond the Paris Agreement's goal of holding anthropogenic climate warming below 2 degrees Celsius.</li>
<li>The top ten Bitcoin mining nations are together responsible for 92–94% of the global carbon, water, and land footprint of Bitcoin.</li>
<li>To offset the CO<sub>2</sub> emissions of Bitcoin mining in 2021–2022, 3.9 billion trees must be planted, taking up an area equivalent to the size of the Netherlands, Switzerland, or Denmark, or 7% of the Amazon rainforest.</li>
<li>China's coal-intensive Bitcoin mining produced more than 41 Mt CO<sub>2</sub>eq in 2020–2021. </li>
<li>Just to offset the carbon footprint of China’s Bitcoin mining operations in 2020–2021, about 2 billion trees are needed, taking up an area equivalent to the sum of Portugal and Ireland or 45,000 times the area of New York’s Central Park.</li>
<li>Hydropower, an energy resource with major water and environmental impacts, is the main renewable energy source of electricity for Bitcoin, satisfying over 16% of the total electricity demand of the global Bitcoin mining network.</li>
<li>Nuclear energy provides 9% of the total electricity used for Bitcoin mining globally.</li>
<li>Only 2% and 5% of the total electricity used for mining Bitcoin came from solar and wind energy sources, respectively.</li>
<li>The global water footprint of Bitcoin mining in 2020–2021 was 1.65 km<sup>3</sup>, exceeding the domestic water use of over 300 million people in rural sub-Saharan Africa.</li>
<li>The land footprint of the global Bitcoin mining network in 2020–2021 was more than 1,870 square kilometers — 1.4 times the area of Los Angeles.</li>
<li>China's share in Bitcoin mining dropped from 73% (2020) to 21% (2022) due to the government’s interventions, while the shares of the United States and Kazakhstan increased by 34% and 10%, respectively.</li>
<li>Countries with low electricity prices, like Kazakhstan, where electricity price is three times cheaper than that in the US, are Bitcoin mining heavens providing major financial incentives for Bitcoin mining that is heavily reliant on non-renewable energy sources.</li>
<li>Urgent regulatory intervention and technological breakthroughs are needed to mitigate the environmental impacts of the digital currency sector, which is rapidly growing.</li>
</ul>