In an age where ‘green’ movements, legislation to reduce carbon footprints, and pushes towards sustainable energy solutions are all the rage, you would think that anything we place a high value on, including futuristic money instruments, would sit in line with these values, right? Well, did you know that Bitcoin’s network uses enough energy to power an entire Scandinavian country? When you make one transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain, you are using the electricity required to power your home for a month. But Bitcoin is not the only culprit. The method Bitcoin uses for obtaining consensus is used by several of the most popular cryptocurrencies, Ethereum included. Naturally, finding a solution to this problem should be on the forefront of our objectives.
The method in question is Proof-of-Work, a consensus protocol which requires an increasing amount of energy to produce results. The difficulty to “mine” Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency running on a similar protocol helps to create a value, especially when demand increases and users are finding it hard to obtain the coins. But the results yielded are inherently volatile. Bitcoin traders have enjoyed the volatility mainly because of the immense capital gains they can obtain literally overnight without having to report it to the IRS. Seems like a dream investment, right? The problem still goes back to the proof-of-work issue. These systems are poor to scale and use up too much energy. While it might be fine for a temporary investment, this is not going to produce enduring results for a global currency.
At Regius Mark, our aim is to create a monetary instrument which can be used for utilitarian spending and be received as a true wage earners currency. In order to accomplish this, we have to establish value, provide ample room to scale, and make it simple enough to use daily. Fortunately, we do just that.