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Greenpeace’s “Skull of Satoshi” artwork highlights their gripes with Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism, but Bitcoin supporters adopted it as a new mascot.

Environmental group Greenpeace’s latest salvo against Bitcoin (BTC) has seen the commissioning of an artwork aimed at highlighting its climate impact. Instead, the art piece has been widely praised by Bitcoiners, who want to adopt it as its mascot.

On March 23, the climate activism group partnered with art activist Benjamin Von Wong for its ongoing “change the code, not the climate” campaign that seeks to convert Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) model.

Greenpeace revealed its art piece dubbed the “Skull of Satoshi” — an 11 feet (3.3 meters) tall skull featuring the Bitcoin logo and red laser eyes, a popular meme adopted by Bitcoin supporters.

Some climate activists think #Bitcoin is just fake internet money they can safely ignore.

The truth? Bitcoin is causing dangerous amounts of real-world pollution from its ravenous consumption of fossil fuels, all due to its outdated code.

The solution? #ChangeTheCode pic.twitter.com/7wa7BMCzV5
— Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa) March 23, 2023

“Smoking stacks” sit atop the skull, which is made of recycled electronic waste, supposedly to represent the “fossil fuel and coal pollution” caused by Bitcoin mining and the “millions of computers” used to validate network transactions.

Greenpeace's marketing efforts took an unexpected turn when Bitcoin supporters expressed admiration for the art piece, with some already adopting it as a quasi-mascot.

NEW: #Bitcoin is causing MASSIVE amounts of pollution and has become a major roadblock in our fight to phase out fossil fuels. So we teamed up with @thevonwong to create this giant with laser eyes to help us raise awareness and spark change.

WATCH and SHARE: pic.twitter.com/Av0IORyV5b
— Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa) March 23, 2023

Will Foxley, the media strategy director at crypto miner Compass Mining, called the art piece “badass” and changed his Twitter profile picture to an image of the Skull of Satoshi.

So badass honestly pic.twitter.com/z68XVws6by
— Will Foxley (@wsfoxley) March 24, 2023

Coin Metrics co-founder Nic Carter tweeted on March 24 that the art is the “most metal Bitcoin artwork to date.”

Others, meanwhile, picked apart the imagery Greenpeace chose, with one Twitter user saying the smokestacks on the skulls head resembled nuclear-cooling towers, which emit steam.

They're demonizing nuclear energy now? Those are nuclear cooling towers that emit water vapor. pic.twitter.com/pJdhFgoeOC
— magic internet moneyist (@notgrubles) March 23, 2023

Greenpeace’s campaign was launched around a year ago alongside other climate groups and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen.

It aims to pressure key Bitcoin developers, miners and the government and claims 30 “key” entities could move Bitcoin from proof-of-work if they agreed to the change.

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Climate-focused Hyphen aims to hold companies accountable for eco-data reporting

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“Corporations need the ability to accurately track and report their scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions to establish baselines ...,” says Austin.

As concerns for environmental impact rose, the market started to require a framework that allows projects to showcase their ecological implications accurately. Because of this, climate-focused data tracking project Hyphen has found a market gap that it’s very eager to fill.

With the support of a Chainlink grant back in 2021, the project is now launching a decentralized oracle network (DON) that allows smart contracts to have access to a verified resource, providing greenhouse gas data starting with nitrous oxide (N2O). This sparks the creation of a reporting ecosystem that holds corporations accountable for their emissions and allows climate disclosures for compliance with regulations.

Miles Austin, the CEO of Hyphen, told Cointelegraph that the project provides “timely data flows of climate emissions information from global sources to both the private sector and public sector.” With this, capital markets are able to use “real-world climate data” as they strategically plan for sustainability.

“Corporations need the ability to accurately track and report their scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions in order to establish baselines to work from in order to reach climate commitments.”

Hyphen chief technology officer Thierry Gilgen says the platform gives out "validated and trustworthy data streams" to emerging financial ecosystems built on blockchain or distributed ledger technology. With the Chainlink DON, data reported by companies will also go through a decentralized and independent verification process. It eliminates fraudulent and inaccurate reporting.

“We use Chainlink nodes to validate and make available data from scientific organizations for smart contract use, in order to build comprehensive climate tracking and regulatory services for governmental organizations, financial institutions and enterprises that are bound to the new green finance/climate regulations emerging worldwide.”

The initial launch features N2O data from the Integrated Carbon Observation System using the Montreal Protocol framework, a global treaty protecting the ozone layer.

While the debate on the environmental impact of crypto continues to live on, recent reports show that Bitcoin (BTC) mining uses only 0.08% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. The network emitted 42 megatons (Mts) of CO2 while the total emissions amounted to 49,360 Mts.

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