The price of BTC crossed $9000 and a number of new investors are trying to find ways to start trade in the digital currency. A first time customer is required to fill out a form to get the bitcoin wallet and then they have to use the traditional method of payments to buy the coins through exchanges, which are transferred to the wallets.
BTC hash rate increased to an all-time high on July 7 (as per the latest data released by Blockchain.com).
The previous record of Bitcoin hash rate was 65.19 TH/S but then it increased consistently. It means the utilization of resources on such trades increased significantly on the day and it increased the demand for resource needed to handle 51% attack to keep the network safe.
A number of countries introduced new regulations to restrict crypto trades as it is highly risky, while, experts predict the price of digital currency may grow in the year. In Iran, the authorities banned its trade in the country and confirmed that its transactions were indisputably illegal.
The authorities warned investors from buying due to its volatile nature and the high legal risks involved in it. There have been a number of reports of money laundering in such trades.
Crypto trade is harmful to the environment
Iran is favoured by coin miners due to the low-cost availability of electricity. The trade requires a huge amount of electricity used by the miners for running computers to maintain the network and validate payments.
The studies by the online index - the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity ConsumptionIndex estimates the energy needed to maintain the network in real time is more than the total consumed by Switzerland.
Another study by the researchers at the the Technical University of Munich and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found the power consumed by the machines to generate the coins and the transaction process resulted in carbon emission equivalent to the carbon emitted by a city like Las Vegas or Hamburg.
Currently, it makes up a tiny fraction of the global payments but still, it has been widely been accepted by the major retailers. Acquiring such facilities requires a lot of computing and most such facilities are located in Asia.
In Iran, two major factories abandoned it was more than 1000 miners were working. It has been found that the increase in electricity consumption increased by 7 per cent in the country due to it, and such low-cost electricity supplies attracted Chinese miners to take advantage.
Bitcoin gains during holidays
The price of Bitcoin increased in the last week and the researcher state the price was driven by factors like a holiday. The rate was high in November to December 2017 when it increased from $6,030.53 to $19,205.93, and in various trade charts, brief recovery in price could be observed mostly around days after Christmas or New Year.
A 2019 report by Delphi Digital states the theoretical retail investment is still the main driver for the price growth in the current year. The rise in February in 2019 was observed around the Spring Festival in China when the rate gained $3,419.17 to $3,908.97.