Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen thinks Bitcoin should move away from the proof-of-work mechanism.
In a statement Wednesday, Larsen also drew attention to growing concerns about Bitcoin's carbon footprint, outlining key vulnerabilities related to PoW. According to the manager, PoW-based cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin should consider carbon-neutral verification methods such as proof-of-stake or combined consensus.
Ripple's co-founder said:
"I think such a change is critical for Bitcoin to remain the world's dominant cryptocurrency. The current energy demand and carbon footprint of PoW is currently unsustainably high and consuming too much energy."
However, Larsen pointed out that altcoins that do not use the PoW algorithm account for 43% of all cryptocurrencies by market cap, and many new cryptocurrencies do not use PoW.
Larsen also mentioned the unified consensus they use to secure the XRP network and verify transactions. This method uses energy equivalent to only 50 US homes a year, according to Larsen.
Larsen's statement came amid a significant drop in Bitcoin's dominance in the cryptocurrency markets. In March, Bitcoin's market dominance dropped below 60% for the first time since October 2020. As altcoins gained momentum, Bitcoin continued to lose market share and the dominance index dropped to 50.7% on April 21.
However, Niklas Nikolajsen, the founder of the Swiss crypto company Bitcoin Suisse, thinks that once the success of the Ethereum 2.0 network is proven, Bitcoin will also switch to PoS.