So I guess it depends how much of the increase in Ethereum's energy consumption you put down to NFTs/their popularity. No idea how you'd calculate that but it's increased hugely the past few months: https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption
Someone tell me why you need the Ethereum blockchain for NFTs when you can just have non-divisible coins represent them, and be watched by a subset of the network instead of the whole network. I mean this is like transporting a beanie baby inside an armored truck with a convoy.
It’s not like we need the history of all UTXOs ever, the coin may have changed hands like 100 times max, so it has an easily checked history. Same principle on Ethereum.
Instead of Ethereum, other blockchains are used. This can be up to hundreds of times better for the environment in terms of carbon footprint. Some of these chains include Algorand, Tezos, Polkadot and other PoS networks.
Not at all, unless the network has a global bottleneck like a miner. Networks built on global blockchains are the problem. And if they use proof of work that’s even worse!
It’s not like we need the history of all UTXOs ever, the coin may have changed hands like 100 times max, so it has an easily checked history. Same principle on Ethereum.