In the last 12 months there has been a lot of talking about the amount of electricity that is used for Bitcoin mining. It has been compared with US households, whole countries and more. But what if we take a closer look at the annual costs of for instance banking or gold mining?

Bitcoin Energy Consumption

Let’s start with Bitcoin’s energy consumption:

The estimated energy consumption is currently 71 TWh, around the same amount as Chile. Some key network characteristics:

Annual Costs of Other Industries

Now let’s look at the annual economic costs of some other industries related to Bitcoin.

Quite a bit more expensive than Bitcoin don’t you think? And what about the estimated annual environmental costs?

Doesn’t really look good for banking or gold mining does it?

And maybe even more important, what about the annual socioeconomic costs including deaths, corruption, theft etc.?

So, you just saw it yourself. Even though these numbers are from 2014 (at this moment Bitcoin costs around $3.55 billion instead of the $0.79 billion in the image), you get the point.

Relatively speaking Bitcoin mining is not that big of a problem...and a lot of improvements are coming that will dramatically reduce the energy consumption (a.k.a. Lightning Network). I don’t see the banking industry or gold mining becoming much cheaper in the near future.

Whenever somebody brings up the topic of Bitcoin’s energy consumption again, feel free to refer them to this article ;-)

Cheers!

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Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, trader or developer. I am just a blockchain & cryptocurrencies enthusiast. Make sure you do your own research, draw your own conclusions and do not invest any money that you cannot afford to lose.