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Is there an intrinsic reason why cryptocurrencies currently take a lot of energy to keep working? Is there a way to make a cryptocurrency still widely used but make it energy efficient?

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As the answer for this question, we have the Proof of Stake approach, firstly implemented by Peercoin (PPC). I think other coins as Ethereum have as well a proof of stake mining/minting approach

links: https://peercoin.net/minting and https://github.com/peercoin/peercoin/wiki/FAQ

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    PoS is not an equivalent replacement of PoW. In PPC, the project founder essentially decided the best chain, ETH has been promising to switch to PoS for five years, but is always a year away from it.
    – Murch ♦
    Commented Feb 12, 2021 at 2:08
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As another post says, we currently rely on PoW. This needs energy. Maybe other consensus algorithms (like PoW), also need (more) energy. BUT: There are also consensus algorithms, we need less energy. Its that simple. The only thing here is: coins e.g. BTC need to switch to another one which needs less energy.

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  • Hi Erhard, I'm not sure I follow your answer. The start of your third sentence makes me think that you meant to mention a different concept, but both the first and third sentence mention PoW.—The main hurdle to switching to a less energy intensive consensus algorithm is to find one which 1) is compatible to the network's incentive system, 2) has similarly attractive security properties as PoW, 3) uses less energy.
    – Murch ♦
    Commented Feb 13, 2021 at 2:45
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It would seem so.

Ethereum has partly switched from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake

... and we may well look back on energy expenditure of Proof of Work as almost all total waste: https://stuart-reynolds.medium.com/is-bitcoins-energy-consumption-a-problem-for-the-world-ff213cc2136a

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    Hi user48956, the cited wikipedia article is labeled as unreliable, and that blog post has multiple factual errors. Unfortunately, PoS is "non-trivial", which is a polite expression for "so far unachievable to make work without trusted third party even allowing pretty lousy trade-offs". You may want to read e.g. download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf to learn about its limitations.
    – Murch ♦
    Commented Feb 12, 2021 at 2:10

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