Green by Design? Investigating the Energy and Carbon Footprint of Chia Network
This reveals a significant sustainability problem for blockchain users and policymakers, as Chia's high emissions undermine its green claims.
The paper investigated the environmental impact of Chia Network, a blockchain claiming to be green, and found that its carbon emissions are 18 times higher than claimed, reaching 0.88 MtCO2/year.
This paper presents a detailed analysis of the environmental impact of Chia Network (Chia for short), a green-claimed blockchain, which uses a Proof of Space and Time (PoST) consensus mechanism. While Chia claims to be a sustainable alternative to Proof-of-Work-based blockchains, our results show that its resource-intensive initialization phase and ongoing operations lead to carbon emissions 18x higher than claimed (0.88 MtCO2/year), exceeding mainstream "green" blockchains by orders of magnitude. We combine experimental measurements from a controlled testbed (Grid'5000) with theoretical modeling of operational and embodied emissions to assess Chia's true sustainability profile.