Some people, including Elon Musk, have criticized the digital currency for using too much energy. Author: Danielle Miller (FOX43) Updated: 12:20 AM EDT June 14, 2021 ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. — As cryptocurrency and Bitcoin surges in popularity, some people are worried about the environmental impact that it might have. To understand how a digital currency could cause environmental problems, you first need to understand how it is gathered, or in this case, how it is digitally mined. “Bitcoin mining, essentially, is finding these solutions to mathematical problems,” Dr. Dmitriy Krichevskiy tells Fox43. Krichevskiy is an Associate Professor of Economics at Elizabethtown College. “But the reason the number of, what say bitcoin, is limited, is because these problems get more and more challenging in complexity.”