The recent boom in non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, has been accompanied with controversy and concern over the technology’s environmental impact due to the computational power required.
Out of all transaction types on a blockchain, NFTs are some of the most intensive of them all as they often involve numerous complicated transactions and executions of smart contracts in the minting, bidding, selling, and transferring process. This is sometimes reflected in transaction costs reaching hundreds of times more than that of a simple transaction.
In the past, the impact of such concerns was minimal, however, in recent weeks, some artists and platforms are starting to cancel NFT plans as a result. Digital artist Joanie Lemercier canceled his second Nifty Gateway drop after becoming aware of the environmental impact of the platform’s sales:
“It turns out my release of 6 CryptoArt works consumed in 10 seconds more electricity than the entire studio over the past 2 years.”
