How much electricity does bitcoin mining use worldwide?
Rumors have long circulated around bitcoin mining that it consumes so much energy that it has long exceeded the energy consumption of some countries. “How much electricity does bitcoin mining use worldwide?!”. Ecologists are already sounding the alarm with might and main: if this is true, then the carbon footprint from its extraction can have a catastrophic effect on the environment.
However, not all representatives of the crypto community share such decadent moods, and many even believe that now there is not a single satisfactory alternative to mining. Whether mining really exceeded the energy consumption of all states in the world and how destructive it can be, read in our material!
How much electricity does bitcoin mining use worldwide
The current annual consumption of Bitcoin is 73.12 TWh, according to the Digiconomist Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index. Despite the fact that bitcoin now actually consumes more energy than 159 countries in the world, this is only about 0.13% of the global volume, according to a study by powercomare.
Bitcoin consumes more electricity than countries like Nigeria, Ireland, Morocco, Slovakia, Serbia, and Oman. Moreother, Bitcoin consumes more electricity than argentina. At the same time, the energy consumption of bitcoin is only 0.49%, 0.74%, 2.73%, 2.9% and 3.11% of the consumption of China, the USA, Russia, India and Japan, respectively.
If we imagine the entire community of bitcoin miners as a separate state, then it would occupy the 61st place in the global rating of country leaders in terms of electricity consumption.
Ethereum Power Consumption
The Ethereum Energy Consumption Index was created using the same methods and using the same assumptions as in a similar index for Bitcoin. The only difference between the two indices is that the average price per kWh for bitcoin miners is around $0.05 per kWh, while Ethereum miners are paying around 12 cents per kWh. This differentiation of costs is due to the launch of the “ASIC-resistant” Ethash algorithm.
Bitcoin mining has already become an industry and a huge business, and ordinary home computers are no longer used to mine it. At the same time, Ethereum mining still uses the GPU, which can be found on almost any PC. Therefore, a value of $0.12 cents per kWh was deduced – an average indicator of the usual electricity costs of various households.
This estimate already looks impressive, but if we compare the energy consumption of ether mining and bitcoin, the difference will be almost 600%, so bitcoin mining is still the world leader in all respects.
What is the result?
Of course, environmental issues should not be left in the background when decisions are made to ban or modernize a particular technology, but the carbon footprint of mining still does not exceed the energy consumption of many countries of the world. In addition, due to the increase in the cost of mining in the future, the amount of electricity spent on crypto mining may be significantly reduced due to the launch of natural regulatory market mechanisms. No one will benefit from continuing to mine if the cost of the process itself even approaches the value of the reward received.
Why does bitcoin use so much energy? Technological progress should not be discounted either – the material interest of large mining pools may well result in a request for the development of much more economical equipment. And surely the best minds of mankind will deal with this issue.
How does bitcoin use energy? Mining! And another factor that can significantly mitigate the negative impact on nature is competition. Most likely, mining still will not go anywhere, but the volume of energy consumption for it will certainly be significantly reduced. It is also quite likely that the crypto community will start using a hybrid PoW and PoS system and thereby reduce the amount of electricity consumed.
In this way, it is also possible to make significant progress in the issue of consolidating the crypto community, whose representatives are constantly arguing about the advantages of one concept over another.
Fears regarding the “monstrous” impact of bitcoin mining on the environment seem to be somewhat exaggerated. Throughout the history of innovation, people have generally been wary of new technologies and predicting their doom. Mining is still far from the main global environmental problem. How much electricity does bitcoin mining use worldwide? A lot. Is it dangerous? It doesn’t seem like much.
If you want to try BTC mining for free, then register on ECOS platform by pushing the button below
