Bitcoin Forum

I just stumbled upon this article that claims Bitcoin could be consuming as much energy as Denmark by 2020  :o Since I gave up mining in 2014, I've almost forgotten just how much electricity goes into making Bitcoins. This got me wondering whether the devs are already working on a solution to this problem. Anyone knows what the plan is?

http://inhabitat.com/power-hungry-bitcoin-could-consume-as-much-energy-as-denmark-by-2020/

Proof of Stake? It solves the problem of you breaking your computer/ASIC, and using all the electricity to hash away.

But this also comes with the downside of a "nothing at risk" attack, and how with this, the ASIC market will crash.

That's true and the cost of energy is one factor which makes bitcoin mining non profitable for the solo miners.

I think it is better to use solar energy for mining purpose. But again it is very expensive to install solar panels at the initial stage. So companies with good amount of investment will be able to manage it.

The devs should come up with an alternative.

this is the same argument over and over again, banks are using and wasting much more power than bitcoin can even dream with its network

also the energy used it's kind of a backup for the value of bitcoin

Power is everywhere around us. In sun, wind, hot springs, water.. But people still make atomic power plants and other not so good things.
So there is enough power for much more mining then now. I don't know where they got this info that bitcoin use too much power. This is ridiculous. How much they use for military and some other things eh.

Bitcoin mining farms are wasting too much electricity power and this will affect the environment in a negative way. The weather has been crazy the last couple of years and it was as warm as in spring this winter season and I think we should worry more about the global warming because it's a serious thing and we should curb down all heat sources as much as possible. It would be better to install solar panels and wind turbines because renewable energy is the future.

If you believe that BTC will eventually replace vast segments of the banking system, then the power consumption aspect appears reasonable on a relative basis

Why should devs work on something that's not their problem? This a problem for mining companies.

Similar numbers for power consumption have already been discussed on the forums. I don't think power usage in the Bitcoin network will increase linearly, but usage will increase more slowly in the coming years due to better efficiency in the mining chips :)

They shouldn't, correct.

Bitcoin should stay away from PoS. It has additional weaknesses.

No.

That's how the media operates in the modern world. They tend to single out information without providing any other comparisons and try to make it look hyperbolic. There are quantities of energy that are being wasted in various industries. The article isn't even good IMO; it was quickly written and does not present information clearly.

i think this kind of issue can become a problem, due to the mining of bitcoin the electricity consumption has raised more than 10 %, and if you add with another alt coin mining, it can become a huge consumption, so the government need to think a way to increase electricity or the coin developer can come come up an idea for a solution to decrease electricity consumption

That's why, using a solar powered Bitcoin Miner is very important nowadays. I know that it's not enough to cover all the power, but at least could reduced the power consumption.

Bitcoin would work just as well with much less mining power. In the end a large portion of the value of mined bitcoins is used for mining. Part for hardware (which also takes energy to produce), part for electricity. Until now block halving has not been able to keep up with the increase in value.

I like the PoW mining, the energy used put a bottom of the price of the bitcoin. The bitcoin price does not drop below the cost of the mining.

What if ... Satoshi planned all that and created bitcoin so he can sell ASIC devices ? ???

that's not going to be a problem if the miners do use an alternate energy,and the technology still grew up and i can sure any electronic thing in 2020 will consume electricity as low as it possible

Electric costs each year will be getting more expensive and yes solar power is one good solution but need how many solar power to keep miner alive at night.

dont think so,i'm sure satoshi create bitcoin with all his heart,they lve technology and create bitcoin for our future. if they earn money from sell ASIC devices,he will need more cost for it,and he just have so much money from bitcoin.

maybe it's true, to mine bitcoin require enough solar energy to generate a bitcoin, probably in 2020 had a lot of energy is expended to generate a bitcoin

http://www.ministerionuevoamaneceriowa.org/Hands-together-300x199.jpg

We are very close to solving this problem. The new scheme basically randomizes the block reward and equalizes the playing field. ;)

~~

Let's make cryptocurrency great again!

That will not work. Doge coin used to use the random block reward. But it failed as people do not mine the lower reward block.

I think the growth of hashing rate is slowing down. With more efficient ASIC the power consumption should go under control... I have a feeling that many of the Chinese miners are on board for the gold rush and not planning to stay for long...

As long as the price of the bitcoin does not crash and there is profit to make, any miners will keep on mining.

Lot of alarmist threads about energy use for bitcoin and it always fails to consider that tech in this field is also moving forward an Tesla is just one example of this. Not worried!

Bitcoin uses 0 power compared to the resources that mining gold is required, not to mention all the geological negative impact that mining gold has as a side effect of moving all the terrain because you are forced to hardcore terraform in order to extract whatever gold its left, yet I dont see anyone complaining about it.

You never know what there will happen with Bitcoin in that year because Bitcoin is a currency and that is impossible to predict for what is going to happen.
So you have to wait and see for what will happen later in the future and have also the patience for it.

What most people don't grasp (including the author of the article in the OP) is that the amount of electricity going into mining BTC is correlated to the amount of new bitcoins being mined - not to the total market cap of bitcoin. In other words, if $1 million of new bitcoins in being mined each day, than it makes sense that just under $1 million of bitcoin mining expenses (ASICs, technicians, warehouse rental, electricity and so on) will be expended in the effort to mine bitcoins. But if that drops to $500,000/day in new bitcoins, then the amount expended on mining will likewise drop in half.

So what does this mean? It means that with every halving the investment in bitcoin mining - including electricity expenses - is going to drop by half, all else being equal. In 2020 we will be having another halving, so after that point the rate of bitcoins being mined will be 1/4 what it is pre-2016 halving. The only way bitcoin will consume as much electricity as Denmark is if the value of each bitcoin rises to stratospheric levels, which will probably only happen if there is a wholesale collapse of fiat currency systems. And even then, the continued halving every 4 years will keep driving electrical use down.

Eventually, in a few dozen years, even if bitcoin is the dominant world currency, the mining of new bitcoins will be so small that the electrical costs will still be correspondingly small. Transaction fees will drive the mining system and corresponding electrical usage, but the need for those fees to stay modest in the face of competition from other cryptocurrency (or whatever) will keep the system from becoming inefficient and overly wasteful of electricity.

TL/DR: Electrical costs for mining bitcoin can only increase if the value of each bitcoin more than doubles every four years (each halving).

why not you attach a small solar panel to your computer/laptop for that work? with solar panel you will cut up the cost of electricity and so will be benefited with mining and transaction etc.

Coal mines ... gold mines ... Datacenters ... and a lot of other things consume more energy than bitcoin network.
But yes. I think we need better ways (ecological forms) for bitcoin mining(as we need for a lot other things), but that should come from farms not from Bitcoin devs.

Yes, miners will not leave mining if the price will be at a good value, but if the price came back to a lower value then I think miners will no longer continue to mining bitcoin and will adopt some other alt coin to mine.

The miners will not leave mining bitcoin and also the price will not drop down because the miners are not only with small amount of bitcoin but most of them are big whales and they can manipulate the price.

proof of stake is the future of all cryptos and blockchains.

Halving the reward = halving the security of Bitcoin network. Unless, of course, miners manage to compensate for the halving block reward with higher fees. In which case the total reward/power consumption remains the same.


Correct, if BTC price does not go up, Bitcoin network will consume less electricity with each halving. Of course, Bitcoin will also become half as secure with each halving.


By "stratospheric", you, of course, mean 2 * 2 * $450 = $1,800. Or just $600 more than it was worth in 2013.
Stratospheric indeed :(

I also think this and I think it will not be a big issue in the year of 2020 to be honest, I really hope it will not.
I think there is a good chance this will not happen.

For sake of argument, even if ALL the cryptocurrency miners were powered by solar, wouldn't it take close to the same amount of electricity usage to produce, transport, install, etc. for the implementation?

I think energy is not that much expensive that miners will leave mining it, and in the coming days the developers will device some techniques so that the energy consumptions will be reduced.

If it is still PoW, the energy consumption will still increase if the bitcoin becomes more popular in the future.

Aaaand thats why we made mining pools. We already know that Bitcoin uses a lot of power and thats why, if you want to make money, you get yourself into a mining pool. It still uses a lot of power, but you can earn more money. :)

You never know what can happen with Bitcoin and that is the problem because there are still a lot of people that is hoping that the value will be more worth but you cant control it and that is bad.
But it is the risk that you should take and that you have also to sell it on the right moment.

Yes bitcoin will be more powerful in future for sure, the only thing it needs is the support from the Government and the society once it is done,it will be the most powerful currency.

How much electricity and other energy goes into fiat?

In a small city, there are many banks branches, they all use a lot of energy and employ many people, that is also costly.

Probably more than into bitcoin, depending on what metrics you use.
Caveat: Fiat economy is at least a million times bigger than Bitcoin, so unless you think fiat uses x1,000,000 more power than bitcoin, this is irrelevant.

Bonus: fiat is primarily used for IRL business and to pay for legit IRL needs, like roads, baby formula, public schools, etc., etc.
Bitcoin is primarily used for laundering fiat, gambling, ransomware, and trying to buy overpriced drugs on shifty DNMs.

Glad I could be of some help :)

Yes there are.
Those brick and mortar bank branches are providing financial services like financing your house and lending you actual money. Services that bitcoin doesn't provide.

Your simple accounting is wrong and if you even think your rubbish is helping somebody, you might be the one needing help.

I dont think mining will have any scope in 2020.

I believe this will become a complete non-issue in the future once renewable energy production takes over.
Plus in comparison to other industries the power usage of Bitcoin miners is negligible.

Definitely agree, basically it is not profitable to mine without having free electricity plans or stuff like that.. just think what does this signalize, that the costs of the electricity or in other words the amount you spend is much higher that the profit..

Look, if you got nothing, just say "I got nothing" & thank me. Don't mope, no one likes that petulant shit.

http://s32.postimg.org/c7mnpyopx/baww.jpg

You are too arrogant to see even the simplest facts, so discussing with no content people like you is just leading nowhere. Get a brain!

http://s32.postimg.org/gs8f923z9/1462640748783.jpg

Isn't that what you brainy people call an ad hominem argument, to sound smart to each other?

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-doesn-t-waste-electricity-it-s-used-for-security-1446482572

yes you are write. Too much power bitcoins use by 2020.

http://themerkle.com/bitbank-seeks-1-57m-to-build-bitcoin-mining-facility-with-worlds-only-12nm-miners/

Electrical price isn't an issue, global warming is. With most countries using coal and natural gas as the primary source of energy, the Bitcoin mining industry can make an impact on the environment. Governments can try to reduce the profitability by introducing taxes for electrical bills. POS is not a suitable replacement as far as I can see; there is simply too much ASICs built solely for mining Bitcoins and SHA256 alt coins, changing Bitcoin to POS is extremely hard or impossible.

Yeah well it can happen, but relatively the electricity used is way lot Lee that you think. I am actually surprised that Denmark uses a lot less energy.

[/quote]

Transacting via blockchain secured by POW uses too much energy, by design.
The cost of mining 1 BTC can not be significantly lower than the price of 1 BTC -- that's how the network is secured. Read the white paper. That's as wasteful as having to spend $90 to print a hundred-dollar bill.
With most of that $90 being Chinese, coal-fired electrical cost :)

There's no doubt that there has to be a better solution than pow we have now. I'm not saying it's not working, but in the future we could try
some pos variation to stop waste of money on power and manufacturing mining equipement.  But so far, for now and still many years to come,
bitcoin is fine as it is, because the energy consumed by the network is nothing when you compare it to the alternatives.

Bitcoin is not responsible for how mining energy is produced. Btw the same "coal-fired" energy is used to support fiat.

Now you seem to have an exact idea on how much for example a dollar (or a yuan) actually costs to produce, secure, transfer, hold, defend  etc. Mind to share the number?

Of course bitcoin is not responsible for how mining energy is produced, bitcoin is just a codebase, can't do anything without people.
The fact that most of the mining happens i China on government-subsidized, 70% coal-fired power is just a fact. That's how it is, AGD.

The revamped $100 bill costs 12.5 cents to produce — a 60% increase over the 7.8 cents it cost to print the older version of the bill.
Hope this helps.

Production cost is easy to google. How about my question? (remember: produce, secure, transfer, hold, defend - and add recycling cost, salaries, cost for storing, cost of couterfeiting etc etc etc.)

The price will be much higher than the actual prodution cost and this is also higher than Bitcoins mining cost. Again, you need to understand, that you are not here to "help", but to discuss. Stop your "hope this helps" bullshit already. It sounds arrogant and also lets you look like an idiot, combined with the lack of actual content, that you provide.

If you include the price of your laptop, your internet connection, your iPhone, your "hardware wallet," all the "bitcoin businesses" that get VC funding and piss it away, all the time you waste on the internet getting ripped off & pumping BTC, I'll include the cost of brick & mortar banks.

Deal?

See what I mean? You can't provide any content to support your statement. You don't know the actual price and energy that is wasted for fiat, though you are stating that Bitcoin mining is "a waste of energy" and definitely higher than fiat. All that yaddayadda about "cost of my laptop" have no relevance for this discussion, because I don't use it only for Bitcoin transactions. How much would it cost for me to send 100000$ USD to China? How much would it cost to send the same amount in Bitcoin? Which transaction would be faster and which would be cheaper? See, Bitcoin has some obvious advantages, which justify a certain amount of energy to be used to secure the system.

Conversely, banks aren't only used to store your money. They assert and underwrite business ventures, they finance houses and cars, that sort of thing.
But, if you insist, it costs me exactly zero dollars and zero zero cents to secure my $100 bill. I keep it in my mattress, which I already have.

You don't have $100k, so it'll cost you nothing. How often do you plan on sending the $100k you don't have to China?
My turn: How many bitcoins would it take you to wipe your butt, after realizing there's no toilet paper on the roll? See?! You can't wipe your butt with bitcoins, period! Checkmate! ::)

I can come up with outrageous shit that happens maybe once in a lifetime too. Though I've actually *did* wipe my butt with a dollar bill once, and I *never* had to send $100k to China.

I think in your place the electricity is at high price, as in our country electricity and the consumption for mining is not at high price, we are also using the solar panels for that so we have zero expenditure on mining, you can also buy a solar panel and start mining for free.

Pick one.
Solar panels are some expensive shit, will cost an order of magnitude more than burning coal. That's why China burns coal :)

No, solar power, even in the middle of the Sahara, is much more expensive than running a diesel generator. Which, in turn, is much more expensive than burning coal. That's why it makes zero sense, that's why IRL power companies burn coal.

He owns more than 1 million Bitcoin, do you think he really need more?

I am surprised that people who talk about bitcoin's power usage are usually quiet about energy, time, effort needed to produce FIAT, mint gold bars and then guard it, transport it, replace old banknotes with new etc.
Creation of bitcoin and production of money can't be compared directly but I feel conventional money creation consumes more resources overall.

It all comes down to how you view it, but technically speaking traditional, paper money does use more resources overall to design, produce, and maintain over long-ish periods of time. Energy and effort are required to be put into all things, that is what gives commodities their values. If anyone could build a house without having to put a lot of energy into it, we wouldn't see buildings with $200k+ price tags.

These solar panels of yours, they work good at night? Or do we only mine when the sun is at the apex, because difficulty only increases, by, what, 8% today?

Backtrack a little: you're comparing solar to the cost of running a diesel generator in Italy, paying $4.725/gal. You don't want to do that, don't mine in Italy with a diesel generator. Because Chinese miners are paying $.03/KWh, you'll go broke on diesel or solar.

TL;DR: FAIK, solar can not compete with coal, price-wise. If you have real data I can look at (like a link), we can start from there.

But mining on solar, diesel, or even grid power across most western countries *is* unprofitable. That's why Bitcoin is mined in places like China and Iceland (where bitcoin use isn't even legal). The solar panels *will never pay for themselves*. Mining on grid power, which is constant, doesn't require batteries and inverters and stuff, and is far cheaper, still doesn't make sense. *That's why it's not done much.*

Solar collectors plantation in the middle of Sahara would save all humanity energy problems, an it is actually not a problem to put them there.
The problem is transferring that collected energy over extremely long distance (power loss is simply to severe), there is also no 'battery technology' available to save collected energy for later.

No one is mining in US @ $.13, not bitcoin, not for profit, that's crazy talk.
Mining is done in China, @ $.03
You talk about $1100 for the solar setup, which works only when the sun shines. NO ONE CURRENTLY MINES ON SOLAR, they're lying to you if they say they do.

In short, please provide some actual data (hardware, specs, miners currently mining with solar power) I can verify for myself, as in links, or this is pointless.

Yes, there are battery solutions, they're expensive as f8ck. You can also pump water uphill, and run it back through a microhydro turbine at night. Also impractical/expensive as f8ck. We're not looking for stuff that's technologically feasible, we're trying to find something that can compete with coal-fired, government-subsidized $.03KWh.

Guys can I chime in on the profitability of solar panels debate? In my country solar panels are mostly used to power water heaters and bear in mind that the weather conditions here are relatively good throughout the year so there is usually sufficient solar energy from the sun to heat your water. But what are you going to do when the weather conditions are not optimal for the solar panels to work efficiently like in the winter and fall when the weather is cloudy and the sun is not out? Unless your solar panel mining farm is in a tropical country with non-stop sunny weather I doubt your solar panel installation will pay off in the long run. And solar panels are not cheap either and require an initial investment on top of your other mining hardware so in the end you are putting in a lot of cash and rely upon many changeable factors that can lead to negative profit easily. At least with grid power you know what you are getting 24/7 and can project what the current and future expenses will be according to the increasing difficulty.

why is the bitcoin using t much power that's only great because how many publicity he gets
how better it is for the future of the coin. And he wont disappear is more and more people are using them.
so be patient he will be big.

Bitcoin is going to be more popular in the future and that is perfect for the people with Bitcoin already and the most are also hoping that it will be more worth.
But the bad thing is that you cant know what is going to happen so you need also to take some risks.

Yup, Bitcoin will be much more popular in the future and a lot more fun in the future. Because Bitoin will be one of the currencies that will be crowded with users because it is always the transaction digitally. You have to know that all the stores have already switched to digital and they use media digital payment. And this is a wonderful beginning for Bitcoin.

i never thought about this,i'm not a miner,so i dont think i spent many power. but bitcoin miners should consider about this,in future if they still mine bitcoin,they will spent so many power just for their rich,its really selfish. they should use alternative power to mine bitcoin.

Bitcoin is using many power but anyway it brings money to people who mining and they don't care about overusing. At my opinion need limit on using power.

It's using power for mining. It's a crucial part of Bitcoin, without which it couldn't exist.

Ask yourself this - how much power does our current global financial policy use?

In the current financial system,  it makes "financial sense" to make something in china, put it on a boat, send it across an ocean, sell it to an idiot, the idiot then discards it, the item is put back on a boat, and then sent back to china for "recycling (http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/30/world/asia/china-electronic-waste-e-waste/)" .

How much energy did that use?

The financial policies of bitcoin, which use energy to verify our distributed ledger, is billions of times more efficient than the current financial policies of individual nation states manipulating currency values to make their indicators positive.

Bitcoin will always be powered

Proof of Work (Pow) is not a sustainable reward system. It would be impossible for bitcoin to reach any sort of mainstream adoption with this severely flawed energy-gobbling incentivizing scheme.

If we look at nature, rainfall is not rewarded for nourishing plants. The sun is not rewarded for its life giving rays. I think the ultimate mining system will be one that's sustainable and more closely models nature.

~~

I’m an engaged environmental researcher and have recently become a bitcoin enthusiast.These are two possibly conflicting fascinations, as previously pointed out by Christopher Malmo here at Motherboard. That’s because bitcoin is incredibly energy intensive: at the time of Malmo’s piece, he calculated that a single bitcoin transaction requires as much electricity as the daily consumption of 1.6 American households, and that number has increased since then. “Adopting Bitcoin as a major currency anytime in the next few decades,” he wrote, “would just exacerbate anthropogenic climate change by needlessly increasing electricity consumption until it’s too late.”

yes you might right,its crucial part of bitcoin,but its not mean bitcoin cannot spent power anymore,bitcoin can spent power from different material,if people still mining bitcoin with electricity from govrement,then in future they should change it into solar energy.

PoS maybe the way for solution but it has to be improved and with secure in mind.

The amount of transactions doesn't increase the need of mining hardware.

1 smartphone could validate all transactions if necessary.

Only f its profitable for the miners they will mine, and if it's very profitable then they might end up using a lot of energy

There is no work involved in proof of stake. It's like a perpetual motion machine then(even more so than it is now), there is no work involved. We need work in order for bitcoin to be fungible and secure. Proof of stake isn't really as secure as you think. Hybrid pow/pos is as retarded.

Currently one transaction cost slightly under 8 USD. The catastrophic scenarios for climate change by needlessly increasing electricity consumption is only if the Bitcoin price skyrockets (much more than doubling every 4 years) which I doubt can happen.

The good thing is we should just expect doubling price every 4 years, which is great return on investment if it can continue longterm - and the best of all, in this case energy consuption of miners remains the same longterm (about the same in 30 years as now). So basically the Bitcoin price defines energy consuption of Bitcoin network.

The bad thing is that nobody will know what is going to happen with the Bitcoin and that is the problem because it is really hard to predict for what will happen in the future.
And as you can see now you see also that there are more people that is holding their coins for later.

If we all work hard, promote and develop the bitcoin, bitcoin will be used by many people, its price will rise.

POW makes the most sense. POS is the same retard concept we have with central banks today. Earning interest, just because you already own something? That doesn't make sense at all, since owning is no productive activity. Proof-of-Resources might be an alternative that at least has some logical merit.

I don't share the concerns that Bitcoin POW might consume too much power. Even if Bitcoin will consume the electricity equivalent of an entire nation it is not necessarily "too much" if you put it into perspective. Bitcoin is both a source of secure monetary units and a transaction system. If you consider the joint energy that is used to provide both functions today (putting physical currency into circulation, maintaining networks of ATM's and transaction servers), Bitcoin will still have a smaller energy footprint.

ya.ya.yo!

Don't most bitcoiners hodl bitcoins, hoping to get rich "just because [they] already own something"?

Nobody will know what is going to happen with the Bitcoin in that year and you see that Bitcoin was stable for a long time so it works not that much power and it has to rise also in the future.
And that is only nice if the halving is also going to be good but the bad thing is that we cant control it and that is bad.

Great,i never think about that,we allnever know until when bitcoin will stay,and might in 2020 bitcoin goes down,or bitcoin can't mine again,its why people so greedy nowdays,they try to collect bitcoin as much as they can,and never care about how much power consumed because of their selfish.

The Bitcoin network will keep self adapting to any scenario. If there is not a profit to be made anymore by x miners in y location, those will simply stop mining and get out of the business, this lowers the difficulty, which means other people will fill incentive to start a mining business.

No thing as too much power, just the required one, as long as its profitable.

I think there is no such thing as over power, As long miners can mine bitcoin it is good to go. But when they can't mine they will stop and they will have another player to develop and mine it. Bitcoin adopt on every technology we create so what will we do on bitcoin is in our hands. Not us will follow bitcoin but bitcoin will follow us.

Minning will be very very difficult by 2020 .  As the difficulty increases, the Cost of doing mining also increases. It will require more powerful machines and more electricity to run that machines and perform the mining. still People who have infrastructure for that we do mining but it will be beyond the scope of a common man. Maybe it will be limited to big companies who shall invest high for this purpose.

I think yes, many miners will quit after halving this summer cause it will be hard for them, in 2020 it will be much harder than now, that's why minrers moving to China.

This thread is full of misconceptions about power consumption.

1) The source of the power (coal, nuclear, solar, natural gas) does not matter when calculating the total power consumed by the system.  What matters is the cost of the power.  If solar power ever cost less than coal - taking all costs into consideration - then people would use it.  It is that simple.  The reason people do not use solar power it that it currently costs more.

2) Efficiency of mining does not matter.  If mining equipment becomes more efficient then people will just use more mining equipment.

3) This is all by design.  The amount of power used is exactly what makes it difficult/impossible for someone rewrite transactions.

The power consumption of the Bitcoin network can be estimated by my previously derived formula:

P = (6(50/2^e) + f)(x)(1 - g)/c [kW]

where:

x = exchange rate [USD/BTC]
e = era [0..32] (we are currently in era 1)
f = average fees per hour [BTC/hour]
c = cost of energy [USD/kWh]
g = average gross profit margin [unitless ratio]

Just plug in your favorite guesses for the year 2020:

How much do you think BTC will be worth in 2020?  $100? $1,000?  $10,000?
Which era do you want to estimate for?  (We are currently in era 1, almost in era 2, 2020 could be era 2 or 3)
What do you think the average fees per hour are going to be in 2020?  1 BTC/hr?  10 BTC/hr?  100 BTC/hr?
Do you think the cost of electricity is going to go down, be the same, or go up by 2020?  $0.01/kWh, $0.03/kWh, $0.10/kWh?
What is the average gross profit margin of the miners (portion of all income not spent on electricity costs: equipment, salaries, rents, accounting, ROI, etc.)?  You can use this number to approximate amortized equipment costs.  0.10? 0.25? 0.5?

Have fun.

The unit cost of the electricity does not matter. The total cost of mining one block is similar to the  value in one block.

are you sure if many miners out of bitcoin. it would make more powerful bitcoin? not that would reduce adopter of bitcoin? and of course it makes bitcoin is getting stronger? especially mining users or miners the numbers are very large?

If Denmark using renewable energy like solar power plants, hydroelectric power plant,wind power plant I think it does not make a big problem. not if Denmark not using the renewable energy it's become a serious problem.

I think in the future you will no bitcoin mining tools are more sophisticated and power-saving course. Because of the growing popularity of bitcoin there will be more innovations to develop mining hardware, and of course in 2020 you will use less electricity to mining :) hehe
Just my opinion, Thank you

Yeah that would happen cause the hardware mining are continuing its production, Many will try to mine bitcoins by hardware miners, The energy will decrease because many miners are using hardware

Im hoping by 2020 the machines (asics) are using very little power so
everyone can mine coins

being in california I had to stop because power was so expensive I was
losing money.

Denmark is a very small country, so not very alarming. Freedom as a cost. And can you remember how many electricity banks are consuming just with all the ATMs by the World ? That's just another anti-Bitcoin argument without any base.

NOPE.  By design the Bitcoin network will use as much power as it can afford.  More efficient mining equipment does not change the amount of energy consumed.

Wrong again.  Power consumption is driven by only one thing:  price.  The energy used will go up if the price goes up.  The only thing that will reduce the amount of energy consumed is a decrease in price.

Wrong again.  You will never be able to make a profit mining no matter how efficient the mining equipment becomes unless you are the only one with access to the more efficient equipment.  If everyone has access to the more efficient equipment then those with the cheaper power will make a profit and those, like yourself, with more expensive power will always lose money.

Sorry.

Kind of.  Since the power consumption is driven by price there is a price at which the power consumption would become excessive.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=694401.0

For example if BTC were to go to $500,000 in this era it would cause a catastrophic mining bubble:

   $500,000 x 25 = $12,500,000 per block = $75,000,000 per hour

$75 million per hour would drive the mining to attempt to use 675 GW.  This is about 30% of all the power generated on the planet.

After July, the bock reward is reduced to 12.5. So that will just be 15% of the world power generation. After a few more halving, it will be even lower.

Correct and true!  That is why I said "in this era"

So, in order to keep our power consumption under about 2% of world wide power production, we cannot/do not want the price to get to $500,000 before era 6, which is about 2033 or so.

Using my previously derived formula for the power consumption:

P = (6(50/2^e) + f)(x)(1 - g)/c [kW]

where:

x = exchange rate [USD/BTC]
e = era [0..32] (we are currently in era 1)
f = average fees per hour [BTC/hour]
c = cost of energy [USD/kWh]
g = average gross profit margin [unitless ratio]

we can look at the power consumption in each era assuming a price of $500,000 per BTC.

In order to make it simple I will make the following assumptions:

x = $500,000 per BTC
f = fees per hour will keep the coinbase above 6 BTC/hour (1 BTC/block) in all eras
c = $0.10 per kWh
g = 0.1 miner gross profit margin

Of course this is a vast oversimplification since the values of the USD the price of electricity vary over time and it is very hard to predict miners fees over time and to know the average gross profit margin of mining.

2020 will be a year of the bitcoin everybody is saying that but if you want to know with year is for the bitcoin you have to see it by your self so i dont think it would happen in just 3 years that take time.

Just curious, what is your native language?

Hmm.in year 2020 yes pretty sure that it will consume much power but not that much power.Bitcoin network it self dont consume that much power it's just like a normal company but tge miners do.Miners use much power if they are not using solar power to operate their mining machines and rigs.But if miner will use solar powered plant i think thats he solution to lessen bitcoin  energy comsumption by 2020

Your conclusions are true, If the hardware miners use solar panel/solar energy, The Miners wouldnt affect the Electic energy so much, Plus if they used Solar power the are actualy lessening their electrical energy charges

I am so sick of hearing that if you use solar power it is somehow not using power.  Power is power.  If you build a coal fired power plant the power produced can be used for Bitcoin mining or something else.  If you build a solar or wind or tide or geothermal plant then the power produce can also be used for Bitcoin mining or something else.  Power consumption is power consumption.  Renewable energy is not free, in fact it costs more than coal or natural gas.

Solar power is not some sort of "magical" energy that if you use it you are not using energy so that your mining equipment uses less energy.  Bullshit.

It simply means that in the near future almost everybody will use bitcoin in their transactions and with high demands to bitcoins mining farms will pop out like mushrooms not only in a single country but the whole world.

Eventually, technological advances will lower the cost of resources required to mine Bitcoins. You are not addressing that with your math. I will post more detailed calculations later.

We all hope that would be true and it will be great but if otherwise happens its another thing around.

There are so many other factors contributing to pollution of the environment. Why are we not saying anything about them?

I believe its because people are busy finding money to avail of their daily needs, environment is not a priority for almost all individual.

in some time bitcoin experiencing a stable state and it will not last for a long time? and you've seen? in some time ago for bitcoin prices could rise rapidly over $ 100? I think halving will give a nice effect and 4 out later in 2020 halving will happen again. bitcoin might already have full power

First time I talked about mining with a friend he asked me wondered: You burn power to earn money?
Yes for some reason it sounds bad  :-\

yes I think 2020 is the year that bitcoin has had a lot of users. bitcoin resource will be even greater. where in 2020 almost everyone is familiar with computer technology will also recognize bitcoin.

Well, an aluminum smelting plant burns tons of electricity, makes aluminum, and sells that aluminum for money.
We're smarter, we just bypass the middle step & turn electricity straight into money :)

LOL thats right and we can buy aluminium from that company for our coins  ;)

The PoW algo is an energy consuming process. Surely the future is not PoW because in due time it will turn the network totally unprofitable. Either they solv this issue by introducing a new and less energy spending algo or either they improve the PoS algo and try to implement it on Bitcoin

I think it is more technically correct to say you burn energy to secure the Bitcoin network.  You get paid to secure the Bitcoin network, burning energy is your cost, the difference between what you get paid to secure the network and your energy cost is your profit.

An attacker would need to burn more energy that us (the current miners), the high cost of the energy they would need to burn is the cost of the attack.

The more energy burned the more secure the network.

That is PoW in a nutshell.

By that time (2020), more people should be using solar power in a major way. And the equipment for this type of energy source should be cost efficient because right now, only few have been using this due to its price being costly. Using solar power is also a great form of investment because it will provide more benefits in the long run (in terms here, for the miners/farms of BTC).

If you are trying to say that massive energy consumption by Bitcoin mining will drive energy prices up to the point that renewable energy will become cost competitive then...  maybe.

So basically burning through all of our non renewable natural resources will cause us to switch to renewable sources of power.

Your point really has nothing to do with whether or not Bitcoin mining is using "too much power".

Thank you for explaining this, among other things. It is very important that people know to distinguish.

Thanks for pointing this out. I like the way how you put into context the non renewable natural resources vs renewable sources of power. Greatly appreciate your comment on this one. :)

Yep, that's why I drive a big block Chevy with Hilborn mechanical injection, because I care about environment. With all them fuel-efficient cars around, we'll never switch over to clean, renewable energy.

i will wait for your post about calculations.
i think its not happen when bitcoin halving come,i guess some miners quit from mine bitcoins or at least they think mine bitcoin no longer profitable. lets wish this is really happen.

I was hoping for this comment.

I dont see reason why Bitcoin mining should be totally unprofitable in the future. Obviously the unprofitable miners turns off and sell their mining equipment and only those profitable keep mining. Obviously electricity cost is main factor whether you can be profitable, but always someone with lowest electricity cost must be profitable, now and in the future as well.

About the too much power used by 2020, it depends about Bitcoin price and block rewards and I dont expect the Bitcoin price will skyrockets so much to justify much higher power usage for Bitcoin mining, plus in 2020 next halving bring block rewards down to just 6.25 Bitcoins each.

I think the miners would not go for a halving of the year. reward is still promising. and many more that have not been mined bitcoin? I'm sure the miners are still eager to be bitcoin mining. at least not for halving this year dude

Bitcoin mining is always profitable, as long as you adjust your costs to match what it is costing you. Mining isn't like mining in real life; you can't have better deposits. You can only have the same consistent reward, and it costs the same amount per hash (most of the time) so no miner has an advantage, per say.

We'll still have a lot of miners for a fairly long time yet.

In what country have the best bitcoin mining in the whole world?
In my country i think there is no mining site that can i mine. or how to start mine my own bitcoin any recommendation? thanks

There is no plan that I know of that could effectively solve this issue. My take is that they should not modify anything in the protocol. PoS is quite flawed since the larger merchants and holders can hold a monopoly over the network with little costs, giving government chances to do so too. Factoring in the technological improvement in ASIC, the power consumption efficiency is getting higher and higher with the cost of the equipment. This can help to reduce power consumption. Solar power and renewable energy would probably be more developed and widely used by then.

Hahaha well that really is the irony of mining, thats why we needs to purchase high-number pieces of technology to lessen power consumption.

Wow, your friend cares about the natural conditions,But you right it's sound is very bad. Many people are willing to sacrifice a variety of resources that exist in nature for the sake of earning money.

The value of Bitcoin is not even rising that fast and you have to know that it is really hard to predict what will happen in the future with Bitcoin in 2020 so that is risky.
And many people are thinking that the value will be higher in that year because it was already stable for a long time.

I think Bitcoin's value is stagnating. In about four years or so the price range would still be between $500 to $600.

But I wouldn't know, I don't have 20-20 vision  8) 8) 8)

What on Earth?  Purchase more equipment to reduce power consumption?  No.

Again NO.  Power consumption is not affected by mining efficiency.  Mining efficiency only affects difficulty.

Again NO.  The source of the power used does not affect power consumption.  Using 100 GW of solar power is the same as using 100 GW of coal power.  It is the same amount of power.

I also am waiting with baited breath for your math showing how the cost of resource used to mine Bitcoins will be going down.  Are you expecting a breakthrough in cold fusion?  BTW if the cost of power were to actually go down then the Bitcoin network would adjust by using more power until it again consumed the maximum power it could afford.  So if the cost of power goes down the Bitcoin network would consume even more power - not less.

Note that the cost of power (c) is in the denominator in the power estimation formula meaning that the lower the cost of power the higher the power consumption:

P = (6(50/2^e) + f)(x)(1 - g)/c [kW]

where:

x = exchange rate [USD/BTC]
e = era [0..32] (we are currently in era 1)
f = average fees per hour [BTC/hour]
c = cost of energy [USD/kWh]
g = average gross profit margin [unitless ratio]

I bet the power consumption over all won't go down if we buy always the newest hardware but the speed of hashing increases like we can see in difficulty again and again           

Unlike all you clueless "we just need more efficient mining equipment" signature campaign thread spammers, Real-Duke figured it out.

Yes, I think it's really a problem, because if the Bitcoin continue to grow, it will eventually consume much of the world's electricity, and if there is a power outage, it will surely be blocked.
Maybe in the future there will be solutions for that.

The power consumption will not rise when the block reward+ fee is the same level as before. When that rises, the power usage will rise.

there are clean solutions to generate energy, and also, more transactions does not mean more power is used.

the amount of miners it irrelevant to the amount of transactions. No matter if you have 1 or 1 million transactions, you only need 3 miners. (actually only 1 but than it wouldn't be decentralized).

More miners just means more security because of more decentralization.

You are correct that there is no correlation between number of transactions and power consumption.

You are correct that there is no correlation between number of miners and number of transactions.

Then you make a statement about the minimum number of miners which I do not completely follow.  I guess it is true that the network could survive with a very small number of mining companies but that is not relevant to the fact that this small number of mining companies would consume as much power as they could afford.

The number of mining companies has no correlation to the amount of power the miners use.

Power consumption is proportional to price no mater how many miners do the mining and consume the power.

Besides, the only miners are those that have access to dirt-cheap electricity and utility bills.
Bitcoin wouldn't consume a considerable amount of power that will change the predicted increase of energy-dependency.

Agree, if the banks are gone, and BitCoin takes over, it'll be alright.

This is very true. The corporatocracy harms the environment more than Bitcoin ever will but nobody dares criticize it.

Any crisis can be solved in a few different ways and innovation is one of them even more so the crisis brings innovation.
If  Bitcoin's intrinsic value is high enough nothing and nobody will stop it.
And that is a power what is greater then energy required to run it :)

i think 2020 is too far to say any thing about that. but the power of the bitcoin can be realize from today. the present condition of the bitcoins shows its position clearly.

If the bitcoin price just double from the current price, it will use similar amount of energy as now. So no worries.

No, it's really close. It would be a good idea if they started worrying about it now.

I think they should implement some sort of PoW/PoS hybrid so the ASIC market won't crash.

Lol bank would not be dead. bank is an institution that is very important to manage the finances of the world. bank is not just a place to save money. but also set up state finances. each country has their own banks so it is unlikely if the bank will be dead or missing.

They can increase the proportion of the PoS gradually so that the PoW can still be used. That willl save some energy.

2020 is pretty far from now.

I'm sure someday the devs will come up with something to solve the potential problem.

TRUE:  If the price were to just about double about every four years then the Bitcoin Network would continue to consume about as much energy as it consumes today.  But, if the price more than doubles over each era then it will consume more than it does today.

Since power consumption is fundamental to the design of Bitcoin it would take a fundamental change (like PoS or PoS/PoW hybrid as suggested) to change this.  I personally do not believe that a change this fundamental would ever be accepted by the majority of miners and nodes.  We will see.

The bitcoin's energy problem is less than the Etheruem. If the Ethereum continue to rise in price, its power consumption will be a lot as it does not have the block halving mechanism. But it will be PoS in the future.

I actually believe that if the currency price of BTC will potentially going to grow, eventually the electrical costs for mining will also increase, it will simply take more blocks/bigger hash speed to build it up.

Though it really depends on the country you live in, it's all relevant to the price of the electricity, anything can happen. I could be wrong on that though, so correct me if I misunderstood it, since this is quite interesting.

It would be better to install solar panels and wind turbines because renewable energy is the future.
 8)

for in my opinion would be nice BTC in 2020, but no one knows what happens in the future. super advance of the question

The power Bitcoin takes to run its network is too much already, that even solar panels won't be able to provide that much.

i think thats true though chinese usually have cheap electricity thus i dont think we nee new electricity sources

but I think the power will always be on the upgrade.
I think every country that has received the bitcoin will create its own power for bitcoin, to make bitcoin is growing. it is because bitcoin is able to change the ecosystem of a country.

There isn't any requirement for countries to generate power for Bitcoin, and a lot of the energy used for those who mine Bitcoin is drawn from the civilian grid and not being subsidized from any other source. Bitcoin might change up the economies of countries in the future, but that is a far ways away and Bitcoin will have to be valued far more highly than it is now.

Even if bitcoin mining uses lot of power now and it will be using more power by 2020, it does not mean that we abandon the project. There are ways we can eliminate waste and get energy efficient systems to get this done.

Wrong.  The efficiency of the mining equipment only affects the mining difficulty.  It does not affect the power consumption of the Bitcoin mining network.

The source of the power generated has no affect on the power consumed.  The amount of power consumed is only affected by the cost of the energy consumed.  Bitcoin mining will always use the cheapest available energy - and that is not solar or wind.