How much energy does bitcoin really use

Many of us have heard of the concept of Bitcoin and how this particular virtual currency is predicted to become the next big thing. So, how much energy does a Bitcoin transaction use? One first distinction to start with is that there is no correlation between transactions and energy usage.

That number is often brought up to diminish the effectiveness of Bitcoin. Still, in reality, year in years, Bitcoin’s energy transaction cost has been going down, while the overall consumption of the network has been going up. To understand why all these matters and what’s Bitcoin energy use, we need to know a bit more.

Energy consumption is one of the main costs of bitcoin mining, as dedicated machines process algorithms to create the next block and are rewarded with tiny bits of bitcoin. As mining becomes more challenging, more and more powerful equipment is needed to be competitive.

When the value of Bitcoin increases, miners are more likely to invest in more equipment. In turn, this will increase the mining difficulty, reduce profitability until a new equilibrium is reached.

In 2009, you could run your desktop computer competitively. You now need specialized hardware, such as the Antminer S15, a dedicated six-kilogram mining unit costing well over $1,000 before you even start, without having to think about the electricity bill. This development, along with the global spread of miners, makes it difficult to accurately estimate the amount of energy spent on the mining operations that underpin Bitcoin.

We do know how difficult it is to solve the proof of work, how much energy is used by various mining units, how much miners earn income, and how much energy is used worldwide as a useful peak. Using these pieces of the puzzle, we can try to fill in the rest. To learn more about Bitcoin’s energy consumption,

Visit our Bitcoin consumption index.