The Chia network/Token was launched as an eco-friendly blockchain developed by Bram Cohen, the founder of BitTorrent. Isn’t it crazy? Let’s find out more about this cryptocurrency. In some Asian countries like Vietnam, there’s an acute shortage of hard discs and it is estimated that about 3 million terabytes of hard drive space are currently being used to mine Chia coin which is equivalent to storing 3 billion movies. With the rise in the popularity of the Chia coin, the demand for hard drives has escalated suddenly creating a shortage in the market. Unlike other cryptos that need immense computational power, Chia mining needs ‘proof-of-space’ in hard drives and SSDs. Chia was introduced as a green alternative to compute-intensive digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. According to some reports, the annual electricity consumption of Bitcoin mining is around 148 terawatt-hours and it continues to rise. Proof of work consumes a lot of electricity to solve computationally difficult puzzles.

This led to the sudden popularity of mining Chia crypto coin in China that resulted in a serious hard drive shortage around the nation.Īs you might already know, Bitcoin mining works on a proof-of-work algorithm while Ethereum uses proof-of-stake. In his tweet, Elon Musk revoked Tesla’s decision to accept Bitcoin as payment for Tesla cars because mining cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are driving up fossil fuel consumption. Lately, this eco-friendly blockchain gained popularity after the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, tweeted about the environmental impacts of mining. The developers of this new cryptocurrency claim it to be a green coin because, unlike Bitcoin mining that needs processors, GPUs, or ASIC mining machines, mining Chia requires more storage space rather than processing capacity. This new crypto coin aims to reduce the harmful environmental impact that comes with mining Bitcoin. The self-proclaimed “green” cryptocurrency, Chia has been created as an alternative to Bitcoin.

Recently, a new cryptocurrency Chia has been gaining attention for causing massive hard drive shortages in Asian markets. New cryptocurrency Chia Is Causing Hard Drive ShortagesĬryptocurrencies have always remained in limelight- sometimes for good reasons while sometimes for bad ones.

Chia cryptocurrency ticker