Climate emissions by Bitcoin mining companies and their financiers

For Greenpeace USA we developed an innovative approach for estimating the energy consumption and carbon emissions from 20 listed Bitcoin mining companies, using electricity grid emissions data and analytical support from nonprofit WattTime. We found that, in 2022, the 20 companies emitted as much carbon to the atmosphere as two coal power plants in a year, over 7.8 million metric tons CO2. Further, we calculated the financed and facilitated carbon emissions attributed to lending, shareholding, bondholding, and underwriting for Bitcoin miners from financial services companies. We identified American investors Trinity Capital, Stone Ridge Holdings, BlackRock, Vanguard, and MassMutual as the top five financiers, accounting for over 1.7 million metric tons CO2 in 2022—equal to the emissions from over 335,000 American homes using electricity for a year