Bitcoin Forum

Today I read this article.....

https://www.ccn.com/bitcoins-electricity-usage-could-power-all-of-austria-in-the-future/

It says in 2018 Bitcoin mining may consume 0.5% of world’s electricity in 2018.
I think this is because the mechanism "PoW" of Bitcoin. It costs a lot of power. And it looks like this statistics only includes Bitcoin, but there are still other coins can be mined.
I am sure for some people this is not environment-friendly and this could be used as the reason to restrict Bitcoin.

Will this affect the future of Bitcoin? or will there be any new energy-saving mining method for Bitcoin or other coins? How do you think about this?

If you take the energy that is being used (wasted) today by the highly inefficient banking system and compare it to the energy
consumed during the process of mining bitcoins, you will quickly find out that the energy spent in the mining process is not that large.
So I think articles like the one you've linked are misleading. Before blaming Bitcoin, the journalist should start by analyzing the current energy
costs in the highly bloated financial sector (which is something we accept as normal, but it is far from normal).

I agree with you on this one. To start off the article with: "Bitcoin's burgeoning electricity demands have attracted almost as much attention as the cryptocurrency's wildly fluctuating value" seems a little intimidating for someone who's just now reading about BTC. Burgeoning makes it seem like it's a big hassle (which it is, but it shouldn't have as much of a negative connotation since it's essentially free money). Furthermore, I really don't think the electricity costs gather nearly as much attention as the actual value of the coin. That's essentially the writer not knowing enough about Bitcoin if not a pure lie.

There is no law that forbids you to use electricity for your own purposes.
And imagine that instead of the asics are the machines for the production of parts?
Do they also consume energy, should they be limited now?

You just need to use alternative energy sources.
But many heads of state are idiots and do not want to allocate money for this and a vicious circle turns out.

So there's Proof of Stake as alternative the current Proof of Work mining for Bitcoin, are you saying that POS will require less electricity? The POS process still requires that miners run machines, they're just getting paid differently...they're not getting paid by the blocks awards, but by the transaction fees. Mining machines still need to confirm those transactions



I don't think it'll affect the future, however if a Bitcoin miner refines alternative energy in their pursuit of lowering costs it'll help the world in incredible ways.

Mining is essential to blockchain and it makes a good profit to all miners despite the power required to operate a bitcoin mining rigs. Some countries used a natural ways of providing stable and cheap price electricity and that gives them advantage to obtain good profit from mining.

To mine the bitcoin is very much needed electricity to use, but I think there will be a way to mine another coin that is more power efficient.

This fact will affect bitcoin and the opinion of States about it. China is already going to try to limit mining, as this is really a very large amount of electricity. Let's see. Most likely, positive from this is not to be expected.

This has already been tackled numerous times on this forum. Many people think that switching to PoS = going greener and lower power consumption. While that may be true, it still pose a risk on the general network since those with higher balances would be the ones generating more bitcoins that could potentially be slammed in the market. There are both pros and cons to either of the algorithm, but why fix something that isn't broken? Mining operators surely know what's up, and some are already going green by using renewables to generate electricity. I'm sure in a couple year's time, many will convert to greener approach towards mining given that there are already countries spearheading the initiative.

For the sake of counter argument, the energy consumed by the inefficient banking system and gold mining can be compared with that of Bitcoin mining, there is a substantial difference. There was an article published on Hackernoon, The Bitcoin vs Visa Electricity Consumption Fallacy:


Rough estimates, Bitcoin adoption is still around 1%, comparing the current energy consumption of Bitcoin with that of global banking system doesn't make much sense and if I go by the figures in this article, 28.67 Twh with around 1% adoption and as adoption increases, I don't think it would be wrong to assume that with about 10 to 15% adoption, the Bitcoin energy consumption would be more than that of the global banking system.

Bitcoin does have an energy efficiency problem. Don't know how effective a solution LN would be, but as Andreas Antonopoulos points out in a YouTube video, the solution lies in a significant growth in renewable/alternative energy sector/establishing mining operations on locations with surplus energy.


https://hackernoon.com/the-bitcoin-vs-visa-electricity-consumption-fallacy-8cf194987a50

https://youtu.be/2T0OUIW89II

Thanks for this reference to the consumption power estimates. I thought the numbers would be more in favor of Bitcoin.

But this is under the assumption that Bitcoin's power consumption will grow linearly with adoption. I wonder why that would be the case? Isn't the current mining power enough to handle 10 or 15 times the number of users? 

This topic comes up frequently and there are some arguments I can agree with which are regular responded.

1. The current fiat system consumes much more energy. Besides the power consumption for a payment-processing systems you also need to consider that the current system consumes energy for building banks etc.

2. bitcoin mining takes place in regions with low energy costs (most likely equivalent to a power surplus) which prevents the need of energy transportation/conversion which would lead to a percentage of energy being wasted.

3. The generated heat from the mining can be used which would make the energy not totally wasted and benefits the one using the mining equipment as heater because of the mining reward. Example:http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/bitcoin-mining-greenhouse-fish-farm-1.4470295

That will not affect the future of Bitcoin. Although it consumes a significant amount of electricity to exploit Bitcoin, there are very few businesses that do. In addition, if the amount of electricity lost is too great, the government will offer a more reasonable price to minimize this.
So you do not have to worry too much about it. ;)

Watch this to understand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T0OUIW89II (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T0OUIW89II)

"how much" power bitcoin mining consumes has never mattered. it can be any amount and rise to any amount such as the 0.5% they are speculating. all that matters is the utility that bitcoin is providing us. and as long as this usefulness is available the power is being consumed in a constructing way.

if anyone wants to nag then they have to nag about the power consumption of all these useless altcoins which are waste of power and space.

I´d like to direct you to this thread where I outlined a few reasons why the
waste of energy argument against Bitcoin is stupid:

Debunking the waste of energy argument against Bitcoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2965877)

Other users added their own arguments as well and the whole thread is definitely worth a read!

From the article that you linked:

If this is indicative of the quality of the data that de Vries used for his analysis
his calculations are completely useless and not to be trusted. Besides, he erroneously believes
that large amounts of desktop computers are still used for Bitcoin mining when in reality
it is 100 % ASICs as of today, because ASICs are simply too much ahead in terms of computing
power for this specific task (all botnets that mine cryptocurrencies on the affected computers
mine other coins (e.g. Monero) and not Bitcoin where ASICs are ubiquitous).

Thank you butka, a fantastic rational reasoning. FUD is so easy to make because people rarely use reason when thinking about what they read.
If someone said that the Earth was plain, a lot of people would start believing it... oh wait, someone did, and - yes they did.

the only energy saving will be less mining competition and it's hard to say whether that'll happen in our lifetimes.

hopefully more miners will head to places like iceland where the power is geothermal and basically limitless.

i don't care what anyone else says, i think it is a crazy waste of resources. the number of actual users is maybe 0.1-0.5% of banking and gold users.

There is a correlation between Bitcoin price and hash rate. Even though Bitcoin price is around $8000 now the hash rate hasn't dropped, it is same or a bit more than what it was when Bitcoin was around $20000. Declining price/hashrate correlation is a bit complex, resistance level. But when you assume that the rate of adoption is going to increase by 10 or 15 times, then definitely the price would increase and here there is no complexity, direct correlation, hashrate following price, the higher the price in USD, miners who stopped mining because it was unprofitable would again deploy their ASICs/new miners, more energy consumption.

Let's assume hashrate, difficulty, blocksize are internal factors, fixed and correlating, price and adoption are external factors then I guess the current mining power is enough to handle 10 or 15 times the number of users. The internal factors adjust to changes in Bitcoin price/rate of adoption. From the security perspective, adoption/increase in network usage would lead to an increase in hashrate to secure the network.

Comparing usage is going to turn pretty ugly for BTC.
You are saying "adoption" but that can't be really measured, what if we switch to usage?

So we have 25Twh for 200k daily transactions via BTC and 100Twh for an estimate of 2 billions transactions for the banking sector.
Of course we're excluding LN, the fact that one transaction can mean 100 poeple are getting payed but still...
In terms on energy consumption the banks win it right now by 500-1000 times.



Mining power has nothing to do with number of users.
The "problem" is the reward gained by mining each block, if the reward is 100$ people will spend 90$ on electricity and take 10$ profit, if BTC skyrockets to 100 000$, then we're going to have a daily reward of 180 millions $ !!! and miners might consume 150 millions worth of energy daily and get the rest in profits.
And beyond that number things get really really scary.

Although I have a little bit of my ideas about this new thing, I will say something from my mind, electricity is needed to use Bitcoin mines, but by transaction fees. Mine machines are still needed to ensure their transaction

Some claim that a proof-of-stake algorithm could prove to be more ecologically sound. Innovations like the Lightning Network could also scale this problem down. Sustainable energy sources such as hydroelectric power has Chinese mines drawing cheap surplus energy from hydroelectric dams. Solar powered mining farms are also a more environmentally friendly approach to the problems posed.

I wrote about this some time ago.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3167859.msg32757342#msg32757342

Bitcoin mining consumes a lot of energy. But it could hasten renewable energy adoption worldwide.

Renewable energy equipment are expensive for households and the return of the initial investment takes too long. But if the excess energy produced can be directed to mining, the capital recovery can be hasten too. As it is profitable, it will lead people to buy more solar panels to mine bitcoin at their houses (They can't build a coal plant at their homes). As people are buying more solar panels, this will stimulate the research for more efficient and low cost solar panels.

And, as many said before, the banking system consumes way more energy, and even Christmas lights consumes the same amount of energy.

really a friend, a lot of Banks in my country who expend the electricity for its operational activities, such as:

1. use the AC in every Bank room.
2. use electricity for computer server Bank and its client.
3. use of printing machine for transaction paper.
4. ATM electricity usage in some spots.

  so it can be said that Bitcoin mining is nothing more than the electricity used by the Bank. and I am sure it is.

It is true though but if a time comes and the utilization of energy by Bitcoin/cryptocurrency mining increases, a solution shall surely arise. Though the concern is gradually rising, a new revolution will come as a panacea

The future of bitcoin mining may be more environmentally friendly, but I don't think the current bitcoin mining industry is wasting a lot of electricity, and a lot of power resources are idle power in some remote areas.

I am sure that in time the amount of energy used for mining in bitcoin will somehow effect governements decisions towards it. However, there has to be a way to help save that energy so that miners can make their money while using the tools required to do so. Just like how engineers are inventing ways for the mass production of cars to be more environmentally friendly.

Mining is not bad, however like you said, it's power consuming which leading to illegal mining, and what's next? this happened: https://btcmanager.com/japanese-police-arrest-16-persons-for-illegally-mining-cryptocurrency/ . i don't it's a nice ending for anyone, but since you risk everything for it, it's debt you should pay, sincerely. but to mine the rest of bitcoin in the short future, these cases will be more, not less.

In order to have excess, you must install a lot of panels...a lot.
And solar panels only produce energy during the day, you will need a lot of extra batteries.
Have you run a check on how are you going to recover your investment?

These days it's a pain the ass to make ROI even with 5cents per kW , how many people worldwide do you think have the money to build a solar array to feed two or three s9 miners? Not even talking about being in an area where it's worth putting up solar panels.

You make it sound like it's s simple thing of putting up some panels and start making money...
No, it's not!!!

If you compare with fiat currency, cryptocurrency energy cost is still far from them.
for example if you use paper money, you need to cut trees to make paper, electricity for production machines, waste products, etc

I think that will not affecting on bitcoin future. Electricity cost on bitcoin mining is already known in years and its not affecting on the price. Some country have different electricity cost, beside that right now many renewable techonology we can use to mining bitcoin

Would you consider the use of the most powerful GPUs in the world for gaming, more wasteful than running those GPUs to sustain a global currency? Those GPUs are currently being used for fun, where the hashing power could have been used more productively to sustain a few thousand global Crypto currencies.  ::)

Most of the ASICs in development today are geared to energy efficiency and the mining farms are powered by renewable energy sources, like hydro/Wind/Solar energy.  ;)

But after you make them you can sit and relax for about 10 years.
And about transportation, an armored truck doing 100km would roughly consume as much as 5-6 S9 running a whole day.

And, paper bills like the euros are not made from wood pulp, they are made from cotton.


First, you know too well that energy efficiency will not reduce electricity consumption.
If the new miner east just 600 instead of 1200 KW the hashrate will just double as it's cheaper to mine and in the end to electricity burned will be the same.

As for the GPU, gaming part...it's all about options.
Can you experience the same gaming with burning that power? Nope.
Can you make donuts in the parking lot without burning tires and gas? Nope.
But can we have some solution to protect the chain with burning that much electricity? Maybe
And I say maybe because I'm no fan of PoS, but there might be another way to secure the chain.

Power consumption of Bitcoin mining.
In a report released Wednesday, Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that the power consumption for computer systems used to dig 'Bitcoin' is now about 0.6 percent. global bridge. This amount of electricity is more than the average use of 159 countries.

I don't think electricity consumed by bitcoin miners will have negative effects on bitcoin future besides it's already known and for the New energy-saving mining method it will be a very good development if that will happen in the nearest future it may be faster and more reliable compare to the present methods and machines.

Mining is essential for Blockchain and it will bring a good profit for all mining. Bitcoin mining rigs will need energy to run. In some countries it will feel the need to use this natural way for the supply of stable and cheap prices. It will give better profits than mining.

This is a bias article. They should also include bank electricity consumption because even banks are using computers in every branch and ATM are also everywhere. Compute it all and you will see that Bitcoin is more energy efficient than bank transaction.

There is no law that prohibits the use of a person's maximum electric energy, only to increase the rate of income when they use too much energy.
Bitcoin mining has a lot of potential for enrichment, so a lot of people invest in machines to exploit Bitcoin. So much energy is needed for the machines to work.
However, small banks around the world are consuming less and less electricity.
Electronic money is an improvement on the world's currency, it overcomes the complex and expensive disadvantages of traditional trading and the problems surrounding it.

Seems like a major over exaggeration, I would like to see where they get their numbers from to assume they use 0.5% of the entire world's energy supply, that's incredibly insane. I have seen other reports saying Bitcoin mining consumes more energy than some entire small countries! If that is true, then we should really be working on a solution to improve the power efficiency of the mining network, as 0.5% of the energy supply is just unsustainable if it continues growing.

Mining bitcoin is now a old school thing. You can't realistically mine bitcoin's and get a nice chunk of it. Not to mention how much the difficulty level of bitcoin is and how costly it is to mine a single bitcoin. Bitcoin isn't environmental friendly exactly because not every single miner would be able to use solar power, so hence they'd obviously use normal electricity, which is a big let down.

I think the electricity that will be used as a mine can increase dramatically because more and more miners in the country. so more electricity supply will be used

Bitcoin mining uses a lot of energy (electricity). In other words, its impact on the environment depends entirely on the “green performance” of the global energy network. If the global electricity network cannot achieve near-zero emissions by 2050, then the renewable energy industry should be ashamed of the lack of market success. But if it can achieve near-zero emissions, the impact of Bitcoin on the environment is minimal.

I think there will be a new method that can use by miners in the future invention is never ending maybe we cant think of it now but maybe someone will, the mining consumption also gives more expenses to the miners and it would be great to to hear out a new way to mine that gives lower expenses.

mining can indeed give great results if the prices are all the same as in 2017, at that time almost everyone rushed to find coins by mining. different from now all coins have decreased in price so that it gives little profit. even the cost of running a machine is not enough. now I prefer to trade because the capital needed is very affordable.

The future of bitcoin mining may be more environmentally friendly, but I do not think the bitcoin industry is currently consuming a lot of electricity, and a lot of idle energy sources in some remote areas. However, there must be a way to help save that energy so that the miners can make their money while using the tools necessary to do so. Tapping is not bad, however as you say, it consumes power leading to illegal exploitation, and what's next? I'm not a good end to anyone, but since you risk everything for it, it's the debt you have to pay, sincerely. Do you consider using the most powerful GPUs in the world to play games, wasted rather than running those GPUs to maintain a global currency? Most ASICs in today's development are geared towards energy efficiency and farm operations provided by renewable energy sources, such as hydropower / solar

There was a rumour all around the world that the electricity consumption of bitcoin is very high and in the coming decade bitcoin will going to use double the amount of electricity as used by the entire world currently so I think this is a work of FUDs and they are trying to bring down the valuation of bitcoin and this is all rubbish because now everyone knows that bitcoin is very sustainable crypto currency and there are millions of people around the world who are investing in bitcoin and they are satisfied with the bitcoin services.

Tapping is not bad, however as you say, it consumes power leading to illegal exploitation, and what's next? I'm not a good end to anyone, but since you risk everything for it, it's the debt you have to pay, sincerely. Do you consider using the most powerful GPUs in the world to play games, wasted rather than running those GPUs to maintain a global currency? Most ASICs in today's development are geared towards energy efficiency and farm operations provided by renewable energy sources, such as hydropower / solar / solar. In a report released today, Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that the power consumption for computer systems used to exploit Bitcoin is currently about 0.6%. global bridge.

well it's quite a lot, I also feel like the energy consumption caused by bitcoin mining should be solved somehow, it's not good to contribute more to the greenhouse effect. We should be more progressive as community than that

I just watched this video and it is very helpful to understand that there are many thing which are consuming more energy as compare to bitcoin mining. But people don't aware of those things, I just recommend to everyone please check out this video and you will get answers of all your questions which is related to power consumption of bitcoin mining.

This energy consumption cannot be sustained when we think about the long term. In this respect, we have to take a step in energy production. (For our future, we have to think of it as green energy.) or we should experience technological developments in mining with low energy.

All this of course small problems of bitcoin and the General sphere of cryptocurrencies, there are problems and more important, well, it's different. that such here small problems can be embodied in one big.

Bitcoin has been attacked for most part of 2018 and this has really impacted on the market price and value of bitcoin and all these attacks are coming from government on the ground that bitcoin is anonymous and could easily be used for crimes and drugs. If another attack that will be coming from the environmental angle hit bitcoin then there will be much problem for the coins to make it. I will like to suggest that miners should consider another source of energy that is environment friendly like solar, wind and hydropower for energy source. This will go along way to shift attention from bitcoin.  

Most people only consider the power consumption of bitcoin mining and that is a major scenario in many media broadcasts but no one think about the benefits that majority of people has gained by using bitcoin through effective and efficient transactions methods as a digital currency so bitcoin maybe consuming more electricity than other currencies but it is a fact or a cost that the world can ignore when considering many benefits and advantages it gives to its users

The miner's role is very important for blockchain and supports the performance of cryptocurrency itself, it makes good profits for all miners even though the strength required is not small to operate a bitcoin mining rig. Some countries use natural methods to provide electricity at stable and inexpensive prices and give them the advantage of getting good profits from mining.

So true. We cannot only use the non-renewable resources to be the only source of energy. People can also used other forms to create electricity. Everything here is in deep need of electricity therefore we cannot really control it because it is a necessity. So the only thing we can do is to find alternatives.

A solution has already been found. A second layer solution called hashed timelocked contracts (HTLCs).
The most known implementation of HTLC's is the lightning network.

With the LN as a second layer, the TPS capability will heavily increase without increasing the energy consumption.


It might also be worth to mention that the whole energy consumption from the bitcoin network is just a small fraction of the energy consumption from the whole banking industry.
This 'bitcoin is killing the environment' argument is not valid at all. Especially since this assumes that the whole energy is (and will always be) from non-renewable sources. That's not an assumption one can easily make.

It is true that the amount of energy used to extract the bitcoin is quite large. But if you compare the energy used in banks, this is still a small number. Too many banks in the world require energy to light and work.  So the power consumption is huge.

The investors who build huge bitcoin mining plants are very careful to maximize their profit and not to waste any part of it, and wasting energy is wasting their profit, too. So they choose the sites for their mining operations very carefully, in effect they locate them in places that:
1) can provide cooling cheaply (cold climate or near-by water reservoirs)
2) have access to cheap energy (close to renewable energy sources, eg. river dams).

In effect, the mining operations use renewable energy, very often the energy that otherwise (if not used) would be wasted anyway. Of course, it is not a rule, but a tendency driven by profit maximization. Anyway, this tendency makes the environmental impact of large scale bitcoin mining much less devastating than the figures from OP would make it to seem to be.

bitcoin will always be limited to the amount, and thus will be even more limited, because mining is more difficult than POS

this is still a lot of debate, on the one hand, mining bitcoin is something we can say "damaging" the environment because of inefficient use of energy, while on the other hand many blockchain projects in the name of green energy, but many have not been realized

Well, there is already a so-called "proof-of-stake" (PoS) mechanism that does not require mining equipment at all. This would allow saving tons of electricity and could be a nice alternative for those people who are concerned about our Earth. There are already some coins that use PoS and one of them might become as popular as bitcoin just because of being friendly to the environment

Developments in the field of bitcoin/crypto mining never ceased nor stopped, it has been a continual effort to find ways to better the mining rigs to make the system more efficient both in process and power consumption.  People have been trying to lower down everything, from cost to the power consumption, and i tell you, there has been a lot of improvement in this area.

Secondly, it is not only the systems and the hardware that are being developed (in the sense of cryptocurrency in general). But developers has been trying to find a much more faster and efficient means of proofing a transaction so that they are verified at a much faster speed and blocks are created in a shorter process.

So i'm sure that we are all set to see how mining methodologies will revolutionize soon.

This has been handled many times in this forum. And it is always exaggerated, whether it is for what purpose, which surely drops the image of Bitcoin. If it's true that mining consumes a large amount of electricity to exploit Bitcoin, of course the government will offer a more reasonable price to minimize this. So you don't have to worry too much about that.

bitcoin has been and will remain unchanged, and may be the only cryptocurrency that will be mined physically, not by itself. This means that it is a great tool for long-term investment, thanks to its value

Nowadays less energy spent on bitcoin mining..
But not because new-invented technology, it's because people are leaving bitcoin mining due to no more profitable..
Sad truth..

People leave bitcoin mining for good? No, it cannot happen long term. It is a self-regulating feedback loop. You see, when the profitability drops, people leave mining, hashrate drops, then as a consequence difficulty drops and profitability rises.  What you may have been seeing are short term fluctuations. Even the halving didn't hurt profitability long term.

This sounds wonderful in theory. In reality, I believe that some miners do mine at a loss (some know it, some not) and some of them even leave this business for good.
But the chance is bigger the miner keeps mining at a loss than coming back after leaving this.


Care to elaborate a little? Halving doesn't necessarily get reflected in the price and I am sure that halving the income for the same work (the difficulty won't drop) and consumption is not great for profitability.

A friend of mine said this recently that it takes a lot of time and a lot of electricity energy go down this road. The mechanism of bitcoin mining isn't easy though. His laptop crashes on the regular and it takes a lot to bring it back. So I agree with one of the comments that said that some people who mine bitcoin don't know the cost of what they are doing, and some people who find out at one point leaves the mining business for good. This is so true.

I dont think the issues of electricity are the main problem in some countrys. Like my place we use hydro power for electricity and very cheap. Even tough mining bitcoin using a very high power but who care. We earn passive income from it every day and who know what happen if bitcoin price are skyrocket again. It sure about gaining profit the top of list.

The algorythms for mining Bitcoin are getting harder and harder to be calculated by the CPU's so they will use more and more energy.

Mining bitcoin is requiring much electricity indeed, but i don't think it will be harming our resources.
There are many eco friendly resources that we can use for mining bitcoin if we want create mining farm.
There are several bitcoin mining farms that using solar energy, or other alternate energy to save more resources.

electricity consumption for bitcoin minning is too expensive, and that can affect bitcoin in the future. if minning is stopped, can it still continue the bitcoin ecosystem, what survives is only a trader and investor? is that possible?

wow 0.5% is very high i think, and 0.5% is from all electricty in the world right? its is very high for electricity consumption, why people still mining? there are many people said that the bitcoin mining is not profitable anymore, the BEP is very long and i think its true from the price of the cryptocurrency and the rig price

I think bitcoin mining power consumption won't increased forever because when more peoples join to mining btc, the difficulty of bitcoin mining will rising.
If the mining difficult rising, the rewards for miners will be lower. If the rewards keep lowering, then many peoples will stop mining and the power consumption will decrease.

A new study by Power Compare shows that the current consumption of electricity for digital currency is far more than that of more than 20 European countries. Only in some countries have more electricity consumption than Ireland, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia and Iceland. Interestingly, only three countries in Africa are currently consuming more electricity than Bitcoin: South Africa, Ai And Algeria. According to Power Compare, Bitcoin's annual estimated electricity consumption is about 29.05 TWh - equivalent to 0.13% of global electricity demand.

Technology will also find its way into the GPUs and bring the computing power more faster and efficient level. I do believe though that bitcoin mining now is very power consuming. Imagine, at this level of adaption, it already consumes this amount of energy at approximately 4 TPS. I sure hope they find a solution soon.

Bitcoin has been alarming people for years because of the amount of electricity needed to mint new virtual coinage.

Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies are founded on the notion of an immutable ledger, called the blockchain, which comprises the transfer of value from one party to another.

Cryptocurrency “miners” seek results to a kind of algorithmic puzzle that fits a very specific set to requirements. Every ten minutes on average, a server finds an acceptable solution, and the miner gets a reward from the bitcoin system.

The miner’s combination of solution and transactions is also added to the blockchain. The new block does not become a de facto part of the ledger until a few more blocks are added, because valid solutions are sometimes found simultaneously, and it is not always clear straightaway which will become the longest, winning fork in the chain.

To ensure that coins cannot be minted too quickly, as the overall network’s computational power increases, the bitcoin protocol continually makes it harder to find a putative solution. Miners are obliged therefore to keep upgrading in order to earn rewards as fast as competitors. And more computing power requires more electricity.

Off course every year, electricity capacity should always increased by government because economic activity increasing too. I am believe bitcoin mining is economic activity too and it helps people getting extra income from cryptocurrency industry.
I think more power needed by bitcoin mining, more good for bitcoin because the activity on bitcoin increasing and the price must be increasing too

WhAt exactly is “staking”? And how do I do it? Is it similar to mining? Thanks.

Bitcoin is very sustainable and now the very successful crypto currency all over the world and we all know that this is human psychology that in every success there are some people who are being jealous of that success every time and the same thing is happening with bitcoin also there are rumours that in the coming decade it will be using twice the amount of electricity as use by the entire world currently, though the bitcoin mining requires some amount of electricity but this doubling the amount of electricity use of the entire world is completely hypothetical in my opinion.

Of course thats another false news or negative feeds to break bitcoins and cryptocurrency in the eyes of many people.but what we need to learn here is the truth about the energy conservation that most miners using now.so theres no need to listen in what others says

the GPU, graphics card unit for mining, has the biggest power consumption, like the 1 Rig have the 10 VGA, 1 VGA have 100W, so in 1 RIG it have 1500W, as we know 1500W is the biggest amount of the electricity power

Oh, god this is just ridiculous. There are a TON of factors which should be taken in place , one of the biggest is the most of btc mining is done by clean energy sources as hydro ,solar and thermal so who cares about the consumption as long as it does not contribute to climate change and also one can make good arguments that current financial txs consume much more energy.

Bitcoin will take more electricity for mining and also have best price too, some countries are restricted to mine minimum number of coins. if want to mine in less electricity better to go for other crypto.

Sure that whoever leaves mining, they do it for good, because to come back they would need to start afresh, make investments again etc.

Rather, what I meant by "people leave mining, hashrate drops" is that people switch between coins that bring most profit. I don't mine today, but back then when I mined you could choose the most profitable coin (it would fluctuate all the time) and I am sure nowadays it is even more automated then back then.

This is why I said that all that self regulates.


Sure, you see, halving is a well expected and timed event. You can incorporate it into your predictions, profit calculations and business plans well ahead of time. As a result, future halvings must be already accounted for in current price levels. Just like dividents or statements of National Bank Officials (capitals intended) are already accounted for in the price levels of stocks ahead of time and only if there is a surprising statement it affects the price after it is announced.

So long term, halving cannot hurt profitability.

Sure, short term all kinds of fluctuations happen (e.g. as there are delays in difficulty calculations, people flock to mine an expensive low difficulty coin, only to change over to the next expensive low difficulty coin when the difficulty of the first one is recalculated).

I think you are right. In terms of what is making global warming and/or climate change worst, bitcoin mining is definitely not the number one reason to blame for it. There are huge corporations releasing toxic wastes and burning fossil fuels. Compared that to bitcoin mining, the latter does not look like a big threat to our environment.

Bitcoin will receive more electric power while mining the coins, it is not easy thing to mine the coins, mining also need high speed internet and super computers so this is the reason it will take more power.

For the sake of the environment that amount of energy to be emitted to the atmosphere will surely be harmful over time. It can also be added to the sins of bitcoin in other to have it destroyed. I am of the opinion that other cleaner sources of energy should be used for the coin mining. There are  other green sources like solar, wind and hydro where the expert can look on for alternative energy sources for crypto mining. We need to do all we can to shift the negative intentions targeted to cryptocurrencies in other to have it destroyed.

I am not sure about the numbers, but mining is certainly a very power hungry operation. Until a more efficient method of mining is devised it will only get more power hungry. green energy solar, wind etc may help but it;s still going to be an issue

Bitcoin mining is consume more electric power because mining requires super computers and very high internet and it will also take more time, we should always turn those computers.so mining consumption more power.

Yeah...to bad that's just a myth

U.S. Senator Warns Closing Montana Coal Plant Will Hurt Bitcoin Mining Industry (https://www.ccn.com/u-s-senator-warns-closing-montana-coal-plant-will-hurt-bitcoin-mining-industry/)

Bitcoin mining’s growing demand for cheap energy revived a shuttered coal mine (https://qz.com/1250980/an-australian-coal-power-plant-will-reopen-to-help-mine-bitcoins/)

Bitmain Has Bitcoin Mining Plans For Texas’ Rockdale Coal Mining Town Expansion (https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/bitmain-has-bitcoin-mining-plans-for-texas-rockdale-coal-mining-town-expansion/)

You should realize that mining is a business, they need cheap energy and if they can get cheap energy they will use anything, coal, gas, oil, teddy bears or ponies, they will burn anything as long as its cheaper.

This is true there are lots of banks in the whole world and those banks consume a huge amount electricity on their everyday operation.

I wonder why they compute the power consumption of mining bitcoin are they not happy that a miner get high bills and pay it properly?.

I think there is a point. Bitcoin mining can consume energy so much becausebyou need to open your computer all day all night together with your internet to earn a small amount of bitcoin. I think this is not practical even if you are doing nothing. But think wisely if you are not lossing if you earn small but you have a lot of expenses in energy and internet consumption. And for me it is more practical if you are joining in signature campaign. It is more less expenses and you need to use your mind and you need to follow the timeline in posting but the advantage is it is you dont have to pay more energy and internet consumption.

I think the problem of bitcoin and energy consumption is somewhat exaggerated. Look at our world. Advertising signs, factories, residential buildings and commercial, they all consume a huge amount of electricity. And bitcoin mining on this scale is very small.

Yeah it is really very bad thing in the crypto. recently i read a news about  Mining. The news was talked about how bitcoin mining can impact our environment and it will lead to global temperature upto 2 degree Celsius by 2033.
For your reference i have added news link
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/bitcoin-mining-is-a-significant-contributor-global-warming-warn-scientists-5484091.html (https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/bitcoin-mining-is-a-significant-contributor-global-warming-warn-scientists-5484091.html) 

Energy-saving bitcoin mining methods can only be obtained by innovating computer processors or chips regarding performance and power requirements, I think in the future there will emerge the latest generation of computers that are capable of sophisticated computing but with low electricity consumption.

Low electricity consumption is a very relative statement. Computers of today have extremely low consumption compared to first computers (which occupied multiple rooms in univerisities) while they are extremely more powerful. Sure, you can go further and probably in 50 years people will not believe how we could be using what we are using today.

Anyway, mining can be eco-friendly if it is powered with a dedicated river or wind turbine power station.

yeah bitcoin mining will take more electricity to produce coins and also the price of bitcoin is more.

Today I read the news and saw interesting information that the mining cryptocurrency takes more power than real mining. How you think about this , that is real ?

I have read much about bitcoin mining and i come to know that it is good for creation of coins but the cost of power consumption for it is more than coins you can earn so for bitcoin mining consumption power is high and it is the reason that most of the miners are shift to China because the electricity is cheap there so mining is good but cost should be keep in mind before doing any thing in life.

Power consumption of bitcoin is one of the reasons the enemies of bitcoin are after it. They are claiming that the environment is being harmed by the emission from bitcoin mining. I do not believe this and it is still working towards destroying of bitcoin. I still believe that miners should not give them the chance to kill bitcoin by looking for other energy sources for bitcoin mining.

if what is meant is that large-scale mining on a company scale will be very influential, and this has become a debate in China. but if it is only involved in individuals, it does not have an impact and will still be environmentally friendly.

I don't see conspiracies here because the consumption of bitcoin mining continues to grow in accordance with the increasingly complicated blocksize.

I think the electricity used for digging bitcoin is negligible compared to some of today's inefficient technologies, and in many places it has used natural energy instead of digging bitcoins.

yes, I have 3 rigs and that is true each Rig requires the electrical power of approximately 1500W. based on my experience, mine fortunately a little because the market dropped so that the exchange rate and income also declined. after making various considerations in facing the downturn, it is more convenient to conduct long-term trading and investment.

These sort of articles are very much one sided. For every argument the MSM puts up against digital currency, I can come up with 100 arguments on the contrary. What about the forests which are saved when we shift from physical cash to digital cash?

If you count all Coca Colas, that have to be cooled down to 5 C at this moment, you will find out that it uses 10 times more energy than Bitcoin mining.

great response in such simple form

Only in the Bitcoin network produces about 50 quintillion operations per second. Based on each received us dollar, such calculations require 17 MJ of energy, this is two - three times more than the usual extraction of gold, platinum or rare earth metals. The only resource that requires energy greater than  this level , is aluminum, the electrolysis of which consumes really huge amounts of enegry.

source: https://naked-science.ru/article/sci/mayning-kriptovalyut-trebuet-bolshe

Actually mining costs are one of the biggest problems of bitcoin. According to a new study of Oak Ridge Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, the amount of energy required to “mine” one dollar’s worth of bitcoin is more than twice that required to mine the same value of copper, gold or platinum.
It also happens with other cryptos, but the amount of energy required is lower that the bitcoin does.
In the long term, the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies will vary not only with their market value, but also according to the adoption of new technologies.
I think new and advanced types of processor technology can lessen the need for power and this will be a big step to keep mining profitable.

I read that the price of bitcoin can not fall below a certain amount, since the high cost of electricity. I also know that the stellar blockchain is ecological ( energy-consuming ), that is realy ?

travelling to china will cost you more than your electric bills caused by bitcoin mining and also i heard that bitcoin mining is already banned in china . china is also a modern country with large population so i dont think that the cost for thier electricity is cheap when compared to other poorer countries like africa and india .


bitcoin mining only generate bitcoins but it cant be used for creating new coins , afaik there are services online that offers coin creation and i think their method is not totally related to mining .

The problem with that argument is this.

The energy used to cool down those sodas is fairly constant from year to year and took multiple years to reach ,
It also won't require double or triple the amount next year to accomplish the same, in fact thru advancements in refrigeration technology it is probably a little less each year.
Also Bitcoin has achieved no where near the adoption of Coca Cola usage.

The problem is Bitcoin Continued Geometric Energy Growth Rate,
If Bitcoin Growth rate was stable or only grew by a few % per year it would be no problem as supply would be able to match demand.

Thinking a Product can continue wasting energy at a geometric rate without having a seriously damaging effect on the environment
and the other participants in energy usage, shows an amazing lack of foresight.

Bitcoin Energy waste is noting more than waste as their is no geometric increase in transaction performance only an excuse that the waste = security.
The Fact is the Waste itself is a security issue painting a target on every ASICS installation for a rogue military element with a few RPGs,
to easily destroy the entire bitcoin network in a few short hours. The remaining few ASICS would be unable to keep the bitcoin network running if said attack occurred.
Or
Since in many countries , a permit has to be applied for to draw that much electricity,
and approval or removal of said permits can be used as a way to manipulate owners of those ASICS Warehouse
into including or excluding transactions per the Government Officials requests.

Energy Waste does not increase security, it turns Bitcoin Security into a Glass shield that a few bricks from a few politicians can easily crack.

The Vulnerabilities are apparent to any not blinded by personal desires.  :)

Wow, somebody went and created a Reddit topic about it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/9vsoft/how_much_energy_does_it_take_to_cool_down_all/

Anyhow seems you were a bit wrong, a few hundred times wrong:

In fact, bitcoin mining does require enormous electricity. In Bitcoin transactions, it will be processed and validated by miners in the Bitcoin network. Whereas in mining it performs calculations and calculations called "hashes".
Hash operation is needed as a solution to complex mathematical algorithm solutions. If the miner is successful, he will get a number of new Bitcoin units (reward), plus a certain amount of transaction costs.
This mining process will guarantee system security in the Bitcoin network. According to Sebastian Deetman (a 2010 Leiden University Industrial Ecology graduate), the Bitcoin mining process consumes approximately 350 megawatts of electricity. That amount is equivalent to the electricity needs of 280,000 households in America