IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/tefoso/v173y2021ics0040162521005345.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Determinants of electronic waste generation in Bitcoin network: Evidence from the machine learning approach

Author

Listed:
  • Jana, Rabin K.
  • Ghosh, Indranil
  • Das, Debojyoti
  • Dutta, Anupam

Abstract

Electronic waste is generating in the Bitcoin network at an alarming rate. This study identifies the determinants of electronic waste generation in the Bitcoin network using machine learning algorithms. We model the evolutionary patterns of electronic waste and carry out a predictive analytics exercise to achieve this objective. The Maximal Information Coefficient (MIC) and Generalized Mean Information Coefficient (GMIC) help to study the association structure. A series of six state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms - Gradient Boosting (GB), Regularized Random Forest (RRF), Bagging-Multiple Adaptive Regression Splines (BM), Hybrid Neuro Fuzzy Inference Systems (HYFIS), Self-Organizing Map (SOM), and Quantile Regression Neural Network (QRNN) are used separately for predictive modeling. We compare the predictive performance of all the algorithms. Statistically, the GB is a superior model followed by RRF. The performance of SOM is the least accurate. Our findings reveal that the blockchain's size, energy consumption, and the historical number of Bitcoin are the most determinants of electronic waste generation in the Bitcoin network. The overall findings bring out exciting insights into practical relevance for effectively curbing electronic waste accumulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Jana, Rabin K. & Ghosh, Indranil & Das, Debojyoti & Dutta, Anupam, 2021. "Determinants of electronic waste generation in Bitcoin network: Evidence from the machine learning approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:173:y:2021:i:c:s0040162521005345
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121101
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162521005345
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121101?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Atsalakis, George S. & Atsalaki, Ioanna G. & Pasiouras, Fotios & Zopounidis, Constantin, 2019. "Bitcoin price forecasting with neuro-fuzzy techniques," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 276(2), pages 770-780.
    2. Su, Chi-Wei & Qin, Meng & Tao, Ran & Umar, Muhammad, 2020. "Financial implications of fourth industrial revolution: Can bitcoin improve prospects of energy investment?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    3. Rehman, Mobeen Ur & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2021. "A time–frequency comovement and causality relationship between Bitcoin hashrate and energy commodity markets," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    4. Islam, A.K.M. Najmul & Mäntymäki, Matti & Turunen, Marja, 2019. "Why do blockchains split? An actor-network perspective on Bitcoin splits," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    5. Li, Jingming & Li, Nianping & Peng, Jinqing & Cui, Haijiao & Wu, Zhibin, 2019. "Energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining: A study of electricity consumption in mining cryptocurrencies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 160-168.
    6. Das, Debojyoti & Dutta, Anupam, 2020. "Bitcoin’s energy consumption: Is it the Achilles heel to miner’s revenue?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    7. Di Silvestre, Maria Luisa & Gallo, Pierluigi & Guerrero, Josep M. & Musca, Rossano & Riva Sanseverino, Eleonora & Sciumè, Giuseppe & Vásquez, Juan C. & Zizzo, Gaetano, 2020. "Blockchain for power systems: Current trends and future applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jana, Rabin K. & Ghosh, Indranil & Wallin, Martin W., 2022. "Taming energy and electronic waste generation in bitcoin mining: Insights from Facebook prophet and deep neural network," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael L. Polemis & Mike G. Tsionas, 2023. "The environmental consequences of blockchain technology: A Bayesian quantile cointegration analysis for Bitcoin," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(2), pages 1602-1621, April.
    2. Ghabri, Yosra & Ben Rhouma, Oussama & Gana, Marjène & Guesmi, Khaled & Benkraiem, Ramzi, 2022. "Information transmission among energy markets, cryptocurrencies, and stablecoins under pandemic conditions," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. Yazıcı, Ali Fırat & Olcay, Ali Bahadır & Arkalı Olcay, Gökçen, 2023. "A framework for maintaining sustainable energy use in Bitcoin mining through switching efficient mining hardware," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    4. Anatolyy Dzyuba & Irina Solovyeva & Dmitry Konopelko, 2023. "Managing Electricity Costs in Industrial Mining and Cryptocurrency Data Centers," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(4), pages 76-90, July.
    5. Mingbo Zheng & Gen-Fu Feng & Xinxin Zhao & Chun-Ping Chang, 2023. "The transaction behavior of cryptocurrency and electricity consumption," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, December.
    6. Ren, Yi-Shuai & Ma, Chao-Qun & Kong, Xiao-Lin & Baltas, Konstantinos & Zureigat, Qasim, 2022. "Past, present, and future of the application of machine learning in cryptocurrency research," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    7. Anh Ngoc Quang Huynh & Duy Duong & Tobias Burggraf & Hien Thi Thu Luong & Nam Huu Bui, 2022. "Energy Consumption and Bitcoin Market," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 29(1), pages 79-93, March.
    8. Lei, Nuoa & Masanet, Eric & Koomey, Jonathan, 2021. "Best practices for analyzing the direct energy use of blockchain technology systems: Review and policy recommendations," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    9. Chi-Wei Su & Yuru Song & Hsu-Ling Chang & Weike Zhang & Meng Qin, 2023. "Could Cryptocurrency Policy Uncertainty Facilitate U.S. Carbon Neutrality?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-15, May.
    10. Umar, Muhammad & Mirza, Nawazish & Rizvi, Syed Kumail Abbas & Furqan, Mehreen, 2023. "Asymmetric volatility structure of equity returns: Evidence from an emerging market," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 330-336.
    11. Elie Bouri & Rangan Gupta & Xuan Vinh Vo, 2022. "Jumps in Geopolitical Risk and the Cryptocurrency Market: The Singularity of Bitcoin," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 150-161, February.
    12. Bildirici, Melike E. & Sonustun, Bahri, 2021. "Chaotic behavior in gold, silver, copper and bitcoin prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    13. Yating, Yang & Mughal, Nafeesa & Wen, Jun & Thi Ngan, Truong & Ramirez-Asis, Edwin & Maneengam, Apichit, 2022. "Economic performance and natural resources commodity prices volatility: Evidence from global data," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Malfuzi, A. & Mehr, A.S. & Rosen, Marc A. & Alharthi, M. & Kurilova, A.A., 2020. "Economic viability of bitcoin mining using a renewable-based SOFC power system to supply the electrical power demand," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    15. Lin William Cong & Zhiguo He & Jiasun Li & Wei Jiang, 2021. "Decentralized Mining in Centralized Pools [Concentrating on the fall of the labor share]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 1191-1235.
    16. Giacomo di Tollo & Joseph Andria & Gianni Filograsso, 2023. "The Predictive Power of Social Media Sentiment: Evidence from Cryptocurrencies and Stock Markets Using NLP and Stochastic ANNs," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-18, August.
    17. Liu, Zhen & Tang, Yuk Ming & Chau, Ka Yin & Chien, Fengsheng & Iqbal, Wasim & Sadiq, Muhammad, 2021. "Incorporating strategic petroleum reserve and welfare losses: A way forward for the policy development of crude oil resources in South Asia," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    18. Ma, Yechi & Chen, Zhiguo & Shinwari, Riazullah & Khan, Zeeshan, 2021. "Financialization, globalization, and Dutch disease: Is Dutch disease exist for resources rich countries?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    19. Sun, Weixin & Zhang, Xuantao & Li, Minghao & Wang, Yong, 2023. "Interpretable high-stakes decision support system for credit default forecasting," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    20. Hossein Hassani & Kujtim Avdiu & Stephan Unger & Maedeh Taj Mazinani, 2023. "Blockchain in the Smart City and Its Financial Sustainability from a Stakeholder’s Perspective," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-21, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:173:y:2021:i:c:s0040162521005345. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00401625 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.