Economic Valuation of Cryptocurrency Production to Sustainable Development Goals

This study contributes to the sustainability literature by developing an integrated analytical framework that internalizes the hidden and explicit environmental costs of cryptocurrency production and connects them to sustainable development pathways in emerging economies. This study examines cryptocurrencies' duality in emerging economies, financial opportunities versus environmental costs like energy consumption, emissions, e-waste, and resource depletion. The study begins with a systematic literature review (based on 250 articles from Scopus spanning 2021–2025) and including the distribution of articles by country, publication trends, and a keyword co-occurrence map for cryptocurrencies. The costs encompass energy consumption, carbon emissions, electronic waste, and pressure on natural resources. An examination of the hidden economic costs of bitcoin cryptocurrency production, reveals annual energy consumption of approximately 204 TWh/y, with direct electricity generation costs exceeding 10.2 billion dollars at a global average rate of 0.05 dollars per kWh; however, in Iran, with subsidized electricity, this amounts to about 1.2 billion dollars. Emissions are estimated at 65 to 115 Mt of carbon dioxide with removal costs ranging from 23.5 to 41.6 billion dollars, and management of approximately 20 to 30 thousand tons of electronic waste annually with recycling and secondary carbon offset costs of 20 to 150 million dollars. This study, with a focus on green financial mechanisms such as green cryptocurrency bonds, sustainable investment funds, and sustainable development indices, offers actionable strategies to transform cryptocurrencies from an environmental threat into a strategic driver of sustainable development in emerging economies.