Power Usage for Bitcoin

[d5000]

@OP: Your assumption is incorrect - there is no minimum power needed to "keep going" the blockchain. What's important is the cost of the power - the more it costs, the more difficult it is to attack the network.

Power usage is smaller than you might think. There's an interesting article from last year that you should take a look at. https://www.thebalance.com/how-much-power-does-the-bitcoin-network-use-391280 At this rate, the bitcoin network runs at 342934450 watts, which equates to around 343 megawatts.

The estimation is not bad, but probably a bit outdated (the article is from October 2016). I want to link here the study I consider the best one about this topic:

Electricity consumption of Bitcoin: a market-based and technical analysis.

His estimation is about 500 MW:

Code:

Lower bound    Best guess 	Upper bound
325 MW 	       470-540 MW 	774 MW

The study is from March 2017, so it is well possible consumption being a little bit higher now, but not much.

Here the author has opened a topic in the Development & Technical Discussion forum.

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[Reid]

I really think that there is a future for Bitcoin except that I fear it may crash because of the ever increasing need for power to keep the blockchain going. Is my fear justified?

I am an 81 year old guy who is trying to understand this thing.

Simple for me. If you dont fear the crash then you will not be a good investor or even a trader.
There should always be a doubt with something specially to a new invesment.
That is telling yourself you are wise but you just dont feel it.
Regarding the power usage I think I have read something about natural energy which will provide for the high power needed.

[n0ne]

Power and internet access is a major requirement for bitcoin and other digital currency to continue service for a longer time. Different countries have different electricity consumption charge as well varying amount of power generation. So Countries have got several alternate plans to increase power generation and make system effective by working on minimal power consumption.

[RealSohan]

If this continues process of bitcoins will remain then in future it power will increase rapidly worldwide.

[~Bitcoin~]

I really think that there is a future for Bitcoin except that I fear it may crash because of the ever increasing need for power to keep the blockchain going. Is my fear justified?

I am an 81 year old guy who is trying to understand this thing.

May be it will be issue later on and with increasing mining difficulty many miners with expensive electricity have to leave bitcoin mining so the only one with very cheap or free electricity can continue mining. Although Bitcoin may not loss its charms just because of high power usage.

[stompix]

I can agree that power usage for bitcoin network will be higher, but that's because there will be more transaction. Furthermore, the power usage will be more efficient since technology will keep improving over time
So i think there's nothing to be feared.

Nothing to do with the number of transactions.
Power consumption will always depend on the daily miners revenue (reard plus fee) / price of kw.

The blockage miners will never consume more power than they could buy with the mining revenue.

Many miners occur next to hydroelectric power plants with reserves, and many are power generators for other reserves. Even later diesel will be cheap and will expand worldwide.

Would that be a problem to all of you ?

Oh , you just solved one of the world problem.
If miners use electricity produced by the dams, don't you thing that they are using somebody else share?
If we all could use hydro power and pay .1 cents for one kw a lot of this world problems would be already solved.

The power needed to run Bitcoin, does not compare to the total amount needed to run the Fiat banking system. You have to think of all the

appliances in and around a bank that are necessary to run it, for example : Air conditioning / ATM's / computers / CCTV systems / Vaults and

all the lights in these buildings... and we have not even started on the amount of electricity that are needed to manufacture coins and to print

money. 

I'm pretty sure that localbitcoins, xapo, blockchain.info are not using even one watt of electricity.
Or the 3000 bitcoin atms.
Or the computers that are powered up when you make a payment.

[szpalata]

Every now and then the equipment manufacturers are coming out with better models of their equipment for high efficiency low power consumption so in fully aware of your plight.

[beerlover]

I really think that there is a future for Bitcoin except that I fear it may crash because of the ever increasing need for power to keep the blockchain going. Is my fear justified?

I am an 81 year old guy who is trying to understand this thing.

Simple for me. If you dont fear the crash then you will not be a good investor or even a trader.
There should always be a doubt with something specially to a new invesment.
That is telling yourself you are wise but you just dont feel it.
Regarding the power usage I think I have read something about natural energy which will provide for the high power needed.

I think if you fear of the things to be crashed then to be very honest you are not someone to be said as investor. Or you are not fit for investment. Those people who are afraid of crash they can’t be good traders. If we look around the world we will find the successful businessmen are those who are risk takers.

[mikehowardelness]

I believe that the electricity consumption will stagnate due to the efficiency in the equipment. The consumption of bitcoin is criticized because there are many interests in altcoins proof of stake.