In March 2021, Greenpeace partnered with arts activist Benjamin Von Wong for their “change the code, not the weather” campaign to turn Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism into a proof-of-stake (PoS) model. The campaign aims to put pressure on Bitcoin developers, miners and the government to move Bitcoin from Proof of Work to PoS in order to reduce the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining.
As part of the campaign, Greenpeace commissioned a piece of art called the “Satoshi Skull,” an 11-foot-tall skull made from recycled e-waste that features the Bitcoin logo and red laser eyes. The smoking chimneys on top of the skull represent the fossil fuel and coal pollution caused by Bitcoin mining.
Unexpectedly, the artwork was widely praised by Bitcoin supporters, with some even adopting it as a quasi-mascot. Will Foxley, the director of media strategy at crypto miner Compass Mining, called the artwork “badass” and changed his Twitter profile photo to an image of Satoshi’s Skull. Coin Metrics co-founder Nic Carter tweeted that the art is “the most metallic piece of Bitcoin art to date.”
However, some Twitter users criticized the images chosen by Greenpeace, with one user saying that the chimneys on the skull’s head resembled steam-emitting nuclear cooling towers.
Greenpeace’s “change the code, not the climate” campaign was launched about a year ago along with other climate groups and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen. The campaign claims that 30 “key” entities could move Bitcoin from proof-of-work to PoS if they agreed to the change.
Bitcoin mining has faced criticism for its high energy consumption and carbon footprint. Bitcoin currently uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism that requires a large amount of energy and computational power to validate transactions and add them to the blockchain. Proof of Stake, on the other hand, requires much less power consumption and has a lower carbon footprint.
