In this map you can see all the countries that individually consume less electricity than all the mining power directed towards Bitcoin. According to an Digiconomist article Bitcoin's estimated annual electricity consumption as of today is 30.25 TWh. With its current price at an all time high the annual mining revenues are $8,586,874,673 while the estimated consumption costs are valued at $1,512,271,665. There is currently 275 KWh of electricty consumed per transaction meaning you could power 9.3 U.S households for 1 day for a single transaction. Doesn't sound as crazy now that the transaction fees of Bitcoin are becoming massive.
The estimated annual electricity consumption right now is equivalent of 0.13% of the total global electricity consumption, if all Bitcoin miners were in a country of their own they would be ranked 61st in the world.
Comparing the map above with a map that shows the percentage of population with access to electricity it does show some relevance to power consumption of miners especially in the African countries
Here is a quoted list of some more interesting facts about the electricity consumption of Bitcoin mining taken from the source:
In the past month alone, Bitcoin mining electricity consumption is estimated to have increased by 29.98%
If it keeps increasing at this rate, Bitcoin mining will consume all the world’s electricity by February 2020.
Estimated annualised global mining revenues: $7.2 billion USD (£5.4 billion)
Estimated global mining costs: $1.5 billion USD (£1.1 billion)
Number of Americans who could be powered by bitcoin mining: 2.4 million (more than the population of Houston)
Number of Britons who could be powered by bitcoin mining: 6.1 million (more than the population of Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Bradford, Liverpool, Bristol, Croydon, Coventry, Leicester & Nottingham combined) Or Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Bitcoin Mining consumes more electricity than 12 US states (Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming)
Here's a map of global bitcoin mining consumption compared to each country's electricity consumption
Bear in mind that the more ASIC miners are created and enter the market, the higher the electricity consumption, the bitcoin mining difficulty and the more countries Bitcoin Mining overtakes
Bitcoin Mining Consumption VS European Countries
Bitcoin Mining Consumption VS U.S States
Here is a scary chart. While Bitcoin Mining currently is only consuming 0.13% of the world's electricity output, if it keeps this up and countries would not add any new power generating capacity, it would consume all of the world's electricity by February 2020.
Bitcoin mining does not seem plausible to me, I predict that it will either change algorithm once it deems to be distributed enough, although many know how monopolized the hashrate is, or people will just ditch it at some point for more energy friendly currencies who are already out in the free market.
Everyone's talking about bitcoin value. Mining becomes harder and harder and causes the currency to increase in value. The predictions mentioned here make sense. Something has got to change before bitcoin creates another issue linked to global warming.
I am upset to know as I recently invested in bitcoin mining. Nice article @acidyo
This is such an inefficient system, at a time when we need to reduce wasteful consumption. Imagine if bitcoin hits 1 mil what the power consumption will be. This is why I support a POS system, hopefully ethereum will take over and save us from wasting more energy. I must admit I do mine as well but I'm not sure how much longer I can support such a wasteful system.
Hmmm, how long before they introduce some sort of carbon tax for bitcoin mining ?
That's crazy and i think is a big big issue for bitcoin in a near future. Regards
resteemed for visibility. I'm trying to this unknown author out into the world.
I think this explains it. Sorry for the Link Drop but better explains the paradox of power vs profitability.
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@pawsdog/is-bitcoin-really-decentralized-or-are-we-being-led-like-lambs-to-the-slaughter
HODL bro HODL
I'm not a HOdler.. I'm a trader... why keep a deprecating asset if I can buy it back at a lower cost. If your neighbor told he would buy your $10 widget today for $13 and you knew you could buy and identical widget from another neighbor at $7.00 tomorrow; what would you do?
I think you forgot a
Indeed they did!
@pawsdog @mejustandrew Yes they did.
And I am one of them.
Stop self-voting comments. :p
I thought the 4 cents I gave it was worth it to show the world I read your posts occasionally. It's designed to help you! LET ME HELP YOU!!!
Yeah but u self-voted after I already voted it up :p
meaning you just wanted to be on top of the comments to leech followers off me! :D
Well, that's not much of a concern for me as I think I may be a little too technical or sophisticated for your average follower... but my followers I think will trust you more if they know I'm standing behind you. You know, propping you up.
@aggroed Great idea👍🏼
Sounds like it is definitely time to switch to mine more environmentally friendly crtyptos! Adios PoW
lol I read "Acidyo's PoW" at first glance. :D
Saying it out loud makes it sound even more alike!
This is crazy. Right now the developing countries and many third world countries cannot even cater to every individual's need for electricity and there are still households with no electricity and such a grand scale use is so saddening. Maybe this is why AI and digital world is dangerous overpowering human need.
it's Shocking, i think bitcoin has so many flaws it has higher tx fees and also very very slow confirmations and now i heard it's mining consumes huge amount of electricity as well but our lovely steem has lighting fast speed and no tx fees as well and also it consumes no electricity as it is mined with proof of brain, so in my opnion steem is the No. 1 and the best cryptocurrency, thanks for sharing the very nice information with us, Stay awesome.
@adnanrabbani yes indeed steem has many advantages. But who cares ?
The only electricity it's consuming is that of witnesses running nodes and people using the site/blockchain.
Or we can say it's our greed overpowering humanity
nice article, I agree it is not sustainable, almost seems as a waste considering all the countries or people that have to live without power. Unfortunate, I wish it was more balanced. As someone that works at building electricity infrastructure i suppose it's good news. Here they are phasing out coal power so I'm not sure how much growth in consumption the market can handle.
The problem with this calculation is that it complete forget that the world energie consume will also rise and the development of new technologies. Maybe in 2020 we have fusion power reactor that could power the earth with no problem or we could have quanten computer or computer made of supra conductor that reduce the energie consumation havily.
Yeah, I did mention that
so it does not count the fact that we are moving towards cleaner energy like solar power and increasing the generation from there.
But if the development is made like in Germany then we realy will have a problem. First shut down the nuclear power plants and then start building solar, wind, etc energie and realize oh shit we don't have enough energie let by the french nuclear energie and power up the coal power plants, because it is good for the nature. The best at the end id that we don't even have a place to stock all the radioactive material.
I always had a thought that bitcoin mining doesn't make sense anymore.
And here is why.
Thanks for sharing good infos @acidyo
Wow that's bad! I don't suppose many miners are sourcing electricity from a renewable source either.
Yes it's true. We need to pay more electricity bill these days
I just want to start of by saying Thank you for your great due diligence and the educational content . This is very informative, exactly what I look for each and everyday . Only time will tell but these numbers haven’t been looking good lately and if it keeps up at this rate who knows what will happen . I am a long term BTC holder but when I see content like this it’s just a wake up call to everyone to make sure you do your research and don’t follow one trend and be a fan boy just because everyone else is doing it . Have a plan and stick to your PERSONAL plan . Thank you for this knowledgeable content, I’ll be looking forward to seeing more from you !
That amount is insane :O
I have a question: What will happen to the bitcoin network in 2020 something when the vast majority of the bitcoins have been mined?
Can the bitcoin network run by its self or does will it always need the minors? Just curious
At Some Point, the Competitive Mining Coins
are going to change or die.
The First CRYPTO DINOSAURS... POW!!
lol
You guys don't really think there's an actual cost for electricity do you? I mean Tesla actually came up with free energy over a half century ago.
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STOPThis is why I like Gridcoin (GRC) for it uses the calculation power, for example, on analyzing potential healing molecules for diseases like HIV and Ebola using BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) with distributed networking. Instead of only using the power for random calculations, the power is used for the better of humanity.
This is really hard..
That would be crazy stuff.Sound would be good @acidyo. This is be massive issue in bitcoin. Bitcoin Mining Consumption will increasing also global electricity consumption pumping. Look at these graph. But Bitcoiin has lot of flaws . Its charging high taxable and also very slow consumes currently. If you don't have any idea pls ask bitcoin users. Then you can confirm it.
The world energize consume will also rise also need providing electricity technology development.
In this fact always had a thought that bitcoin mining doesn't make sense. But thank you for sharing great info update to us @acidyo.
Bitcoin was great to promote blockchain & cryptocurrency ideas, But now it is time for something different - this trend is not sustainable. And the bitcoin network can hardly repaired to become sustainable - as it would contradict the whole bitcoin idea.
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@atul8888/bitcoin-will-hit-usd40-000-in-a-year-but-beware-have-small-exposure
If these stats are true "Estimated annualised global mining revenues: $7.2 billion USD (£5.4 billion)
Estimated global mining costs: $1.5 billion USD (£1.1 billion)"
Then bitcoin mining will not be profitable if the price of Bitcoin decline to 20%, isn't it?
great analysis and very informative information.thanks for sharing
Magnificent article, thanks for the excellent visual information
Well unfortunately, Africa has a very low eletricity rate, the development of bitcoin mining may be a mirage other than reality.
Woah! That's insane. I wonder what's the future of Bitcoin gonna be if it continues at this rate. :O
Also my country pakistan has issues with electricity and very costly.many people go to gulf countries for mining project.
Should they start extracting an environmemtal impact fee?
Gradually cryptocurrency is surpassing every aspect at avg country level employment, electricity, market cap all gone up compared to an avg country, looks as if it is slowly going to expand at world level
thank you friends have given information.
Great write up - I've been seeing this idea addressed a bit lately. It definitely seems like there will be some sort of bottleneck effect at some point but who knows?
Maybe all the miners will pour their earnings into alternative energy technology to make it incredibly cheap and efficient....and on solar
very good article. we always knew that the electricity consumption was the big problem of the bitcoin but to see the figures puts the tear in the eye. the bitcoin is not perfect :'(
Dude, what? These are some fucked up facts, lol. The thought has never even crossed my mind that Bitcoin mining could end up eating up all of the worlds electricity in a few years.
Not only does it use lots of electricity but the cost of the miners themselves are very expensive. I do not really see the upside to mining but some do.
good work
extraordinary bitcoin, up nearly 100 percent
My understanding is that mining is profitable and consumes less electricity if you live in a country with cold climate.
We just moved our Ethereum mining rigs to another province because the electricity rate was significantly lower. Once ETH goes POS, things are going to change drastically for us.
Great article, check out https://www.envion.org/en/concept/ (crypto mining from portable mining rigs in shipping containers situated at solar power farms.
Greetings, good publication, very interesting. I wait for your comments in my publications to be able to improve and do quality things. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing
"Bitcoin Mining now consuming more electricity than 159 individual countries"
Is it good or not? The answer is : " It is proof-of-work. "
yes that's how the world revolves, comes the positive side but not out of the negative side chase.
the use of electricity with such large quantities will have an impact on the earth's energy crisis. this is very dangerous actually