With great power comes a great electricity bill

[Come-from-Beyond]

Is there somewhere statistics on Bitcoin miners electricity consumption?

[xhomerx10]

https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate

 Multiply that by an estimated joules per Ghash/s and you have the estimated network consumption.

at 0.7 joules/Ghash/s ~ 280MW

[MicroGuy]

Progress typically requires an expenditure of some kind of energy.

My understanding is in terms of energy efficiency, Bitcoin mining ranks as the biggest waster of power since the invention of electricity.

The entire bitcoin network could be sustained safely on less than 1000 watts. lol  

[SirChiko]

Progress typically requires an expenditure of some kind of energy.

My understanding is in terms of energy efficiency, Bitcoin ranks as the biggest waster of power since the invention of electricity.

The entire bitcoin network could be sustained safely on less than 1000 watts. lol  

Except it couldn't be called decentralised network then.
It's good the way it is and power consumption will eventualy get lower as the time goes and btc per block reward will get lower.
POS isn't future in my eyes at all.

[MicroGuy]

Except it couldn't be called decentralised network then.

Incorrect. You don't have to mine to preserve the blockchain. The flaw is in the reward system design. It encourages waste.

[bluemountain]

no doubt you will find a relationship between fossil fuel consumption and electrical rates, my guess is it's contantly with contribution of hashrate

[valkir]

280 MW that's a lot of Electricity!
With 1800 block its around 450 000 $ that a lot of electricity for 450 000 $ 

[SirChiko]

Except it couldn't be called decentralised network then.

Incorrect. You don't have to mine to preserve the blockchain. The flaw is in the reward system design. It encourages waste.

But you see ASIC chips get upgraded more and more often so it wastes less electricity after every new technology.
I belive in next 2 years the eletricity consumption of bitcoin will get atleast to half that it represents now.

[xhomerx10]

Except it couldn't be called decentralised network then.

Incorrect. You don't have to mine to preserve the blockchain. The flaw is in the reward system design. It encourages waste.

 The blockchain in stasis is utterly useless to bitcoin.  Miners are required to verify new transactions; the reward was to get them started.
Anyway, that wasn't even part of your original, flawed argument which was:

...The entire bitcoin network could be sustained safely on less than 1000 watts. lol 

 I'm pretty sure you said "network" there.  lol

[MicroGuy]

Miners are required to verify new transactions; the reward was to get them started.

Having one miner actually do the work (the block winner) and all the other miners (block losers) waste their efforts is the definition of "inefficiency".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inefficiency

Maybe Satoshi owns a lot of stock in power companies.

[SirChiko]

Miners are required to verify new transactions; the reward was to get them started.

Having one miner actually do the work (the block winner) and all the other miners (block losers) waste their efforts is the definition of "inefficiency".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inefficiency

Maybe Satoshi owns a lot of stock in power companies.

We don't force all the miners to do that work. It's their own choice and it would be more of a lottery if everyone would go solo.
For some miners it's just an hobby. Also with current pooled mining your argument is invalid as all the miners that worked on so said block will get reward by ammount of their work done on block.

[MicroGuy]

We don't force all the miners to do that work. It's their own choice and it would be more of a lottery if everyone would go solo.
For some miners it's just an hobby. Also with current pooled mining your argument is invalid as all the miners that worked on so said block will get reward by ammount of their work done on block.

Who is we?

Bitcoin is great, but its reward system encourages the wasting of electricity. This is an indisputable fact.

[xhomerx10]

Miners are required to verify new transactions; the reward was to get them started.

Having one miner actually do the work (the block winner) and all the other miners (block losers) waste their efforts is the definition of "inefficiency".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inefficiency

 At first I thought you were ignorant but now I see you're just trolling. You and I arguing about those things we cannot change is also an inefficient use of our time but the beauty of it is that I can change that efficiency.  I'm done. Have fun.  lol

[MicroGuy]

Miners are required to verify new transactions; the reward was to get them started.

Having one miner actually do the work (the block winner) and all the other miners (block losers) waste their efforts is the definition of "inefficiency".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inefficiency

 At first I thought you were ignorant but now I see you're just trolling. You and I arguing about those things we cannot change is also an inefficient use of our time but the beauty of it is that I can change that efficiency.  I'm done. Have fun.  lol

I'm done too. There is no point in debating the obvious. 

[SirChiko]

We don't force all the miners to do that work. It's their own choice and it would be more of a lottery if everyone would go solo.
For some miners it's just an hobby. Also with current pooled mining your argument is invalid as all the miners that worked on so said block will get reward by ammount of their work done on block.

Who is we?

Bitcoin is great, but its reward system encourages the wasting of electricity. This is an indisputable fact.

Well i meant to say nobody is forcing them to mine and it's their free choice to do so.
Well it is an fact that it wastes alot of electricity but also many other things do. And miners can get electricity even from solar systems and i belive that atleast 10-20% of miners use that advantage.

[alh]

We don't force all the miners to do that work. It's their own choice and it would be more of a lottery if everyone would go solo.
For some miners it's just an hobby. Also with current pooled mining your argument is invalid as all the miners that worked on so said block will get reward by ammount of their work done on block.

Who is we?

Bitcoin is great, but its reward system encourages the wasting of electricity. This is an indisputable fact.

Well i meant to say nobody is forcing them to mine and it's their free choice to do so.
Well it is an fact that it wastes alot of electricity but also many other things do. And miners can get electricity even from solar systems and i belive that atleast 10-20% of miners use that advantage.

While in terms of "miner" (i.e. people or entities), it might be as high as 10%, I am sure Solar only covers less than 1% of actual mining production. Mining is a 24x7 year round operation, Until you move off planet you don't get that much sun.

[teukon]

Miners are required to verify new transactions; the reward was to get them started.

Having one miner actually do the work (the block winner) and all the other miners (block losers) waste their efforts is the definition of "inefficiency".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inefficiency

Maybe Satoshi owns a lot of stock in power companies.

This is indeed a valid definition of "inefficiency".  However, you are the one that judiciously introduced the term "waste" into your description of the mining process.  Your assertion that Bitcoin mining is inefficient is simply built upon your assertion that Bitcoin mining is wasteful.

Also, I don't understand the meaning of "actually do the work" here.  Are you suggesting, for example in the case of block #300001 appearing 19 minutes after block #300000, that the block winner did 19 minutes of actual work?  Surely all but one of the trillions of hashes performed by the block winner in this period were every bit as wasted as the unsuccessful hashes of all block losers.  Surely the block winners unsuccessful hashes were every bit as wasted as the unsuccessful hashes they performed before block #300000 (when they were themselves a block loser).

[xhomerx10]

 Hass McCook (MBA from University of Oxford) did a 5 part series evaluating the sustainability of the Bitcoin network against other monetary institutions for Coindesk.  The conclusions are here:  http://www.coindesk.com/microscope-conclusions-costs-bitcoin/

 I'm pretty sure the costs would scale downward with greater efficiencies in mining and upward with a higher bitcoin valuation.  Already, you can see the difference in electricity costs over less than one year.


 

[David Rabahy]

Ok, look.  Everyone stop mining except one guy (I'll volunteer) thereby minimizing/nearly eliminating the "waste"; well maybe we should have a few guys spread out for safety.  Those guys distribute the block reward and transaction fees gained in some, er, fashion to everyone that wants some.  Oh, the devil is in the details, isn't it?

[worhiper_-_]

Some of the best miners achieve 1KW with 1TH.

The network has 354142 TH/s at the momment.

S5 =Hash Rate: 1155 GH/s ±5%
Power Consumption: 590 W (at the wall)
2 Th or so with 1kw

Oh lol, I didn't realise there are so good miners now...