Right now, Ethereum uses 113 terawatt-hours per year, which is the same amount of power consumed by the entirety of the Netherlands. It's this incredible energy consumption that gives NFTs their hefty carbon footprint.
This is obviously bad for the environment, but it hasn't stopped Ethereum users from buying them. In a nutshell, NFTs are digital works of art that when purchased are unique to the person that bought them.
Ether, right now, is the most commonly used cryptocurrency when it comes to purchasing NFTs.
There isn't an exact date for when Ethereum will switch entirely to proof of stake, but is expected to begin sometime in the first half of 2022.
To be clear, this announcement has not come out of the blue - Ethereum has spoken of it for years, with the blockchain's founder, Vitalik Buterin, saying "[We thought] it would take one year to [implement] POS (proof of stake) ... but it actually [has] taken around six years."
Ethereum previously relied on a consensus mechanism known as "proof of work", which basically means so-called crypto miners use immense amounts of computing power to 'win' access to the next block on the chain.
When they win access, they can claim new cryptocurrencies, whether this be bitcoins, or in the case of Ethereum, ether (ETH).
The proof-of-work process requires users to solve a computational problem and the more powerful the computer, the more attempts at solving it can be made. With more power comes more energy consumption.
It's become a sort of arms race, with people investing in ever-more powerful machines, resulting in more carbon emissions.
In an article published on The Eco Experts, it was found that the average NFT produces 92 times the amount of carbon emissions as a physical work of art.
