Bitcoin electricity cost
Bitcoin mining consumes a lot of energy. Every once in a while, someone compares this to another random metric — say, the energy consumption of Ireland — and it induces a collective gasp. How can this thing be sustainable? Bitcoin's little brother Ethereum is at an all-time high. It's true that Bitcoin mining is an awful energy drain. Hundreds of thousands of application-specific integrated circuits or ASICs — specific hardware aimed exclusively for mining cryptocurrencies — hum in huge hallsmainly located in China, and use enormous amounts of electricity to create new bitcoins.
They also power the Bitcoin transaction network, but they do it in a horribly inefficient way. The fact that a huge chunk of China's electricity comes from fossil fuels makes the situation even worse. But things aren't that simple.
We don't know, exactly, how power-hungry Bitcoin really is. And whatever the figure is, Bitcoin certainly doesn't need that much energy to run. Furthermore, energy consumption issues can potentially be fixed with a future upgrade of the Bitcoin software, which is easier than, say, reducing the energy footprint of Ireland.
Finally, there are other cryptocurrencies out there working on a solution to this problem. Despite what you might've read, we don't have exact figures on Bitcoin's energy consumption. A site called Digiconomist keeps stats on how much energy Bitcoin is consuming, and it's the primary source for the stories circulating on the subject. Some of these stats look horrific: Bitcoin's current energy consumption is But we shouldn't blindly trust those numbers.
Getting exact energy consumption figures for miners, many of whom are secretive and located in China, is not easy, so Digiconomist uses a very roundabout way to make its estimates.
It's impossible to say how accurate Digiconomist's index is, but it could be off by some measure. Furthermore, the energy consumption is rising because of Bitcoin's quite insane price rise, not because the network actually requires it. This price growth is a huge incentive for miners to add even more ASICs and use up even more energy, but it doesn't really have to do much with the number of transactions on the network.
In fact, the number of transactions on Bitcoin's network hasn't significantly increased in a year. The number of transactions on Bitcoin's blockchain pictured isn't significantly bigger today than it was a year ago. And yet, the energy consumption of Bitcoin rose immensely.
There are two reasons for this. Bitcoin's network can't handle many more transactions though a recent software upgradeyet to take full effect, should improve this. Furthermore, Bitcoin isn't exactly doing its job the way its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, had intended. Due to its price rise, not many owners actually use their bitcoins to purchase goods; instead, everyone is either hoarding it or speculating with it.
This means that talking about the energy cost of one Bitcoin transaction is misleading. A figure that's thrown around often is the energy cost of one Visa transaction also a very rough estimatewhich is orders of magnitude smaller than that of one Bitcoin transaction. But for Bitcoin, the transactions are not the problem. In fact, you could theoretically run Bitcoin's entire network on a dozen year old PCs. But it's important to point out that the fact that Bitcoin is currently an enormous energy drain is not due to some irreparable flaw in Bitcoin's protocol.
Bitcoin can run more efficiently; it could probably run more efficiently than Visa as it doesn't require offices, staff and other overhead energy costs.
One project Bitcoin could take cues from is Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency right now. According to Digiconomist, Ethereum uses roughly three times less energy than Bitcoin; and yet there are twice as much transactions per day on Ethereum's network. And even that could get a lot better in the near future, as Ethereum's development team plans to gradually switch to a completely different mechanism of verifying transactions.
Called proof-of-stake, it replaces the current system, called proof-of-work also used by Bitcoin. Instead of having miners solving complex math calculations, it would reward owning the coins. The concept isn't implemented in Ethereum yet read here for a detailed explanation but if it does work as intended, the energy costs, compared to proof-of-work, would be orders of magnitude smaller.
Bitcoin's developers aren't looking to switch to proof-of-stake very soon, but they are working on a solution called Lightning Network that would ideally vastly increase the number of transactions on the network without the need for additional hash power.
So is Bitcoin's lust for energy just a temporary issue that will easily go away? Ethereum's leadership has successfully implemented major changes on the network in the past without many problems. Bitcoin, on the other hand, hasn't been able to implement a far more simple upgrade for years, as any upgrade needs a consensus of nearly all users of the network or a potentially dangerous hard fork.
And Lightning Network, as promising as it is, is just a concept at this stage. But Bitcoin's problems aren't insurmountable. The solutions are already out there. Sooner or later, Bitcoin will have to adapt. If it doesn't, in the long run some other cryptocoin will solve it and take its place.
Bitcoin has the first-mover advantage, but that quickly wears off when everyone else is leaner, faster, and more efficient than you. And that's perfectly alright; Bitcoin and its energy woes might be forgotten some day, but cryptocurrencies are here to stay.
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A new study has come out that offers a bit of insight into how much it costs to operate cryptocurrency mines around the world.
A list published by Elite Fixtures—which oddly enough sells lighting and home decor furnishings—lists the average price of electricity to mine a single bitcoin around bitcoin electricity cost world.
They used bitcoin as it is the most ubiquitous cryptocurrency and is worth the most when compared to traditional currencies. On that list, Canada placed 26 out of bitcoin electricity cost countries listed. This is based on Ontario energy costs—slightly higher than the Canadian average. To conduct the study, Elite Fixtures used information provided by local governments and companies as well as organizations such as bitcoin electricity cost International Energy Agency.
For the amount of energy actually consumed in the bitcoin electricity cost of one bitcoin, they used the average of three different mining rigs: That bitcoin electricity cost not necessarily include transfer or exchange fees. The South American country is a perfect storm for miners: Still, it faces massive inflation and an unstable government that has threatened miners in the past, so setting up shop in the country could be as volatile of a decision as the bitcoin itself.
Like Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago have a healthy electricity subsidy due to their widespread adoption of natural gas and renewable energy sources. For prospective miners, make sure to avoid South Korea. This is due to a sliding scale of electricity consumption in the country—the more used, the more it costs.
This is important as China is the top bitcoin mining location in the world right now by a long shot, bitcoin electricity cost companies like Bitfury and Bitcoin electricity cost call bitcoin electricity cost country home. This study is interesting to look at electricity costs around the world, but it should not necessarily be seen as cryptocurrency gospel.
Many of the countries listed have bitcoin electricity cost costs of electricity that are not taken into account. For example, in Canada, most of the bitcoin mining is happening in Alberta and Quebecand not Ontario as the report lists. The same goes for the U. Many countries are seen as more enticing for mining due to political climates as well. Companies are flocking to Canada to take advantage of a stable stock market structure, while many companies are exiting China due to threats of tightened regulations.
The full list of countries with their respective bitcoin electricity cost can be found here. Uber has halted their autonomous driving tests after a fatal accident. The ride-hailing company said today that a woman was…. Andre Haddad is a master when it comes to connecting a person with what they need. That might involve helping…. Max Greenwood Jan 31 Matt Odynski Oct 31 Max Greenwood Mar 27 Max Greenwood Mar 19 Nav Dhunay Mar 16 Max Greenwood Dec 12