Blockchain as a turning-point innovation: Energy consumption and socioeconomic evaluation

Blockchain technology, particularly with the advent of Bitcoin, has developed and taken hold in many application domains. It is hailed as a profoundly innovative technology, capable of transforming the use of data through decentralisation. Another strength of blockchain is its transparency and security, intrinsic to the design of the technology itself. Conversely, its consumption is also intrinsic to the design of the technology itself; the way it is built, it employs a consensus mechanism used to reach the necessary agreement on a single data value or network state between distributed processes or multi-agent systems. Hence, it brings with it a large consumption of electricity with consequent negative effects on the environmental impact. This research aims at the general study of blockchain by attempting to touch upon all the sensitive areas in which it is used: the financial, the socio-economic, but above all the energy sector.