Closed petition Ban the mining of and trade in "proof of work" cryptocurrencies within the UK

Many popular cryptocurrencies use "proof of work" to secure transactions. Proof of work is incredibly wasteful: current estimates suggest that it currently uses around 0.5% of the world's electricity. We cannot afford this waste if we want to reach net zero.

More details

Many computers used to mine cryptocurrencies are specialised, can't be repurposed and rapidly become obsolete. This generates a lot of electronic waste. Recent estimates have concluded that mining operations consume 4% of specialised semiconductor manufacturing and 20% of all graphics card sales. A ban on proof of work based cryptocurrencies, would not be a full ban on cryptocurrencies but would instead incentivise a move to more environmentally friendly mining algorithms such as proof of stake.

This petition is closed All petitions run for 6 months

786 signatures

Show on a map

10,000

Date closed 1 June 2022
Get petition data (json format)

About petition data

The data shows the number of people who have signed the petition by country as well as in the constituency of each Member of Parliament. This data is available for all petitions on the site. It is not a list of people who have signed the petition. The only name that is shared on the site is that of the petition creator.