Bitcoin could consume as much electricity as Denmark by 2020

[GamingBro]

It's really possible cause power for mining rising eveytime and after 2020 power in sum will be so huge. I belive that amout of electricity can be compared to Dansih.

[ATguy]

There are dozens of more efficient chips being built as we speak to counteract inefficiency as it relates to power consumption

So we should start to see energy consumption levels drop over the next few years

No, energy consumption stays the same but hashpower goes up. What determine energy consumption is basically cost of mining Bitcoin instead of buying Bitcoin, thus only Bitcoin price, mining rewards and price of electricity determine rational energy consumption of all Bitcoin miners. So investment to new ASIC units (or running the existing ones) makes sence only if there is money to be made, ie cost of mining Bitcoin (electricity) is lower than just buying the Bitcoin instead.

[Ossidalm]

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/bitcoin-could-consume-as-much-electricity-as-denmark-by-2020

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.”

As I have some experience in developing energy scenarios, I wanted to see how this could develop into the future. My findings weren’t much more encouraging. According to my calculations, if the bitcoin network keeps expanding the way it has done recently, it could lead to a continuous electricity consumption that lies between the output of a small power plant and the total consumption of a small country like Denmark by 2020.

There are dozens of more efficient chips being built as we speak to counteract inefficiency as it relates to power consumption

So we should start to see energy consumption levels drop over the next few years

It does not matter how efficient the chip or the machine is. The cost of electricity to mine one block is similar to the value of one block.

[mkc]

Bitcoin also provide value to the mass. It helps people move money around the global more efficiently.

[tmfp]

I think it is highly irresponsible of the Danes to use as much electricity as Bitcoin.
I am sending an e mail to the United Nations right now.

[Grillo]

I have the solution to this problem, check it out in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP4KFH6Iz0g

[thejaytiesto]

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.”

Thanks to those who want to keep Bitcoin BlockSize limit artifcally low, single bitcoin transaction has to cost a lot of elecricity. It just show how short sighted the small blockers are, if you increase BlockSize and number of transactions in the block, the electricity consumption stay the same whether you mine 1 MB or 10 MB blocks...

Electricity consumption increases only if Bitcoin price increases more than 2x every four years. If not, electricity consumption has to decrease instead. Considering the same price for electricity worldwide and over long periods.

Big blockers always manage to move whatever topic to yet another excuse to FUD about how block size is artificially low, Bitcoin is going to explode because block size is to small etc...
When will you understand that node centralization is a problem, and if you want node decentralization raising the block size right now is just stupid because it wouldn't solve the scaling problem at all, and would only help to centralize the nodes? There's a lot of people having problems to run nodes in certain areas, and decentralization means nodes all over the world, not only in a couple of developed places.
Please let experts (Core team) do the job while amateurs waste their time paying VICE for FUD articles.

[SmartIphone]

People try to reduce the usage of oil by using electricity but we can't do anything, the next big thing is getting the electricity by solar panels and the mining will be more efficient. More difficulty need more power.

[countryfree]

Hey, banks have huge servers too! And I've used e-banking for many years. You also need electricity for printing banknotes in highly secured factories with big trucks to move them to banks which are also highly secured with cameras and plenty of energy-consuming stuff. So the cash I have in my pocket doesn't use any energy, but fiat is energy intensive too.

[Wapinter]

That was a new fact to know. Its obvious that mining consumes a lot of electricity but didn't thought that it would add up to the total electrical consumption of the whole nation ( Denmark ). This is one of the draw backs of bitcoins as compared to fiat.

New unconventional sources of energy need to be generated to fuel bitcoin mining.Almost all of our technology is highly energy consuming why single out Bitcoin?I hope with time we would have less energy consumption mining hardwares

[SFR10]

Although the article had interesting points but the method of calculation can't be measured since as years pass by, more efficient chips are being developed that are being used one after the other with less consumption of electricity so what were using now and simply multiplying it by some calculated numbers towards future, can't give a possible range outcome and things surely changes as we go on.

[YoonYeonghwa]

Wow, that is a significant downside to bitcoin compared to fiat currency-electricity usage... That would probably be a reason, if bitcoin never goes mainstream, why it doesn't. Too much usage of electricity...

[Zuminest]

now we can use solar panels to generate electricity as it is the cheaper one compared to others.. by 2020 more advanced methods to generate electricity will be found... so electricity won't be a great problem...

[Bitcoinpro]

too much stupid in the opening post

u cannot attack anything in such a one dimensional way

and expect anyone to believe u have a brain or where not

just paid to make a troll piece

[kehtolo]

Wow, that is a significant downside to bitcoin compared to fiat currency-electricity usage... That would probably be a reason, if bitcoin never goes mainstream, why it doesn't. Too much usage of electricity...

Hahahahahaha... yeah right. Have a think about gold credit cards and banks... bitcoin 'could' potentially replace all of that with one network...
Bitcoin pales into insignificance when held up beside those three.
Electricity stopping bitcoin going mainstream?? I really really doubt that.

[StrawberryF]

Gosh, the bitcoins are conquering the Universe! I can't believe it's all so interconnected - the energy and the web-coins. However, we all should be honest with that: there should be some damages to the world with what we earn and how we do it. Web-money is yet on its way to show the full power of our life. That's why I try being more old-fashioned and pragmatic with my finance. The making money on the Internet is very easy and cool work because you have such excellent opportunity to dispose of your time such as you need, and have a lot of time for your friends and other important deals! I’m experienced freelancer and know about such kind of this perfect work enough. The main in it – right and reliable payment system, because thanks to the superb payment service you will sleep well not worrying about the safety of your money. From my personal experience, I can advise to all of you this amazing ‘Worldcore’ https://worldcore.eu/ which will please everyone with the high-quality service and incredible perfection. So I wish to everybody great good luck and large successes in all your beginnings!

[richkellj]

As the time pases, Miniing gets difficult and consumes more electric power, this in fact use more electricity but but i still doubt this statment.
Bitcoin could consume as much electricity as Denmark by 2020

[pedrog]

So, I did some math on that prediction, and if all mining is done in China with an average of 80 dollars per MWH, just to pay the electricity one bitcoin has to be worth 15573,33 USD, this is with no profit.

I wouldn't mind such a thing but I think the author is being way too optimistic.

[Carlton Banks]

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.”

Thanks to those who want to keep Bitcoin BlockSize limit artifcally low, single bitcoin transaction has to cost a lot of elecricity. It just show how short sighted the small blockers are, if you increase BlockSize and number of transactions in the block, the electricity consumption stay the same whether you mine 1 MB or 10 MB blocks...

I agree with this. But the small blockers have their own agenda - they arn't interested in scaling nor in the environment or anything else. I honestly feel that after the halving we'll see a dramatic decrease in price as people start voting with their wallets.

Big blocks don't scale at all, so your argument is literally complete nonsense. It's laughably ironic that you claim an interest in scaling and the environment, yet display gaping ignorance on both topics. So, here is the reality on big blocks and anthropogenic climate change (aka "the weather" lol)


Anthropogenic climate change is a scam, perpetrated by the big oil/energy corporations that intend to sell you the carbon credits that they will be the sole vendors of. You can buy that if you want to Alyssa, but I'm not that foolish.


Big blocks literally do not change the scale that the Bitcoin network operates on, it increases the throughput, but not the scale. Your words are reckless, badly informed and malign the expertise of those that actually have some. Because, as has been discussed before, the big holders of Bitcoin decide the fate of BloatedBlock forks in the markets, and guess what? Your BloatCoin fork will get short sold right into the dirt.

[cpfreeplz]

Who cares? It's just an arbitrary comparison. Who's to say Mcdonald's doesn't consume more electricity worldwide than they use in Denmark? That's what makes bitcoin worth something. No miner is going to sell at a loss, or if they do they'll stop mining!!