Bitcoin mining now accounts for nearly 1% of global energy consumption

Bitcoin mining has been established - that is, a donated computing power to keep the network running encryption currency in exchange for the chance to win some free encryption - use a lot of electricity. Companies involved in large-scale mining operations know this is a problem, and they are trying to use various solutions to improve energy efficiency.

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Bitcoin mining now accounts for nearly 1% of global energy consumption
26th August 2018
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Bitcoin mining has been established - that is, a donated computing power to keep the network running encryption currency in exchange for the chance to win some free encryption - use a lot of electricity. Companies involved in large-scale mining operations know this is a problem, and they are trying to use various solutions to improve energy efficiency.

However, according to the testimony provided by Princeton computer scientist Arvind Narayanan to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, no matter what measures you take to make cryptocurrency mining more environmentally friendly, this is a short-lived comparison with the overall network energy consumption. Instead, Narayanan told the committee that the only factor that really determines how much energy Bitcoin uses is its price. “If the price of cryptocurrence rises, more energy will be used for mining; if it falls, less energy will be used,” he told the committee. “Everything else is important. In particular, the increase in energy efficiency of mining hardware has little impact on energy consumption.”

In his testimony, Narayanan estimates that bitcoin mining now uses about 5 gigawatts of electricity per day (in May, bitcoin is estimated to be about half of its electricity consumption). He added that when you have a computer that goes all out to earn free bitcoin, it will be as hot as hell, which means you may use more power to keep the computer cool, so it won't die and / Or burn down the entire mining center, which may make the total cost associated with mining higher.