When will Bitcoin be more energy efficient?

[postcd]

According to environment news site Grist, if the currency’s growth continues on its current trajectory, it will use as much as the entire USA in just 18 months’ time.

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/888535/bitcoin-environment-destroying-planet-fossil-fuels-energy-electricity-Denmark-US-2020

By July 2019, the bitcoin network will require more electricity than the entire United States currently uses. By February 2020, it will use as much electricity as the entire world does today.

Source: https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-could-cost-us-our-clean-energy-future/
(August 2019 update: wrong, "Recent published estimates of bitcoin’s electricity consumption are wide-ranging, on the order of 20‑80 TWh annually, or about 0.1-0.3% of global electricity use" (Ireland is 26TWh) - source)

Bitcoin network consumes at least 2.55 GW of electricity currently, and that it could reach a consumption of 7.67 GW in the future, making it comparable with countries such as Ireland (3.1 GW) and Austria (8.2 GW).

https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30177-6
(seems correct nearly 2 years later according to iea.org article linked above)

Carbon footprint per transaction (kg of CO2)   122.14

Source: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

Other person thinks digiconomist numbers are wrong and power consumption is much lower:

hypothetical Bitcoin market cap of $1 trillion still fails to incentivize miners to consume more than 800 TWh per year, or 0.74% of the world's consumption of energy

Source: http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-mining-is-not-wasteful/
http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption/

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I am asking as a non developer looking for the links to project or the timeline of developing solutions to this problem. Thank You
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

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[cryptojohnstone]

Bitcoins short life so far has been eco efficient compared to any other currency in the world.

[ManaMan]

I do not believe we will see any major changes any time soon about mining. Mining is huge business on it's own and it would not be easy to try to tweak the code there, I am sure many people will lose faith in bitcoin if it for some reason switch to some other consensus such as POS. Problem is real there, that's for sure and with popularity of bitcoin gaining more attention of the public, more people will try to mine it which means the network will consume even more energy.

[Wipro]

I do not believe we will see any major changes any time soon about mining. Mining is huge business on it's own and it would not be easy to try to tweak the code there, I am sure many people will lose faith in bitcoin if it for some reason switch to some other consensus such as POS. Problem is real there, that's for sure and with popularity of bitcoin gaining more attention of the public, more people will try to mine it which means the network will consume even more energy.

Number of miners are increased in huge amount from the past 1 years but they are not mining the bitcoin I guess. You may find the ASIC for the high price and not supported for the various mineable coins still.
So investing on mining with the GPU cards will be better and more over difficulty of mining bitcoin will be increased so you can go with the GPU cards and mining ethereum means it is profitable to you bro.

[stomachgrowls]

I do not believe we will see any major changes any time soon about mining. Mining is huge business on it's own and it would not be easy to try to tweak the code there, I am sure many people will lose faith in bitcoin if it for some reason switch to some other consensus such as POS. Problem is real there, that's for sure and with popularity of bitcoin gaining more attention of the public, more people will try to mine it which means the network will consume even more energy.

Number of miners are increased in huge amount from the past 1 years but they are not mining the bitcoin I guess. You may find the ASIC for the high price and not supported for the various mineable coins still.
So investing on mining with the GPU cards will be better and more over difficulty of mining bitcoin will be increased so you can go with the GPU cards and mining ethereum means it is profitable to you bro.

When it comes to profitability/ apparatus cost / changing mineable coins then i would hands down for GPU since this thing can give you out the chance to jump into one coin to another depending into your decision where you can able to view that you can make profits which is an advantage.ASIC is away more expensive that GPU but still there are lots of people who do make engagement with it.When it talks about energy efficiency it would be more enhanced as it upgrades when boards used up smaller nanos.

[cryptohacker29@]

Energy efficient Bitcoin is hard to see in the future but there will be many other coins which will be energy efficient. Take a look over cybermiles it is a very good coins to invest now.
It is 100 times faster than ethereum.

[noithathanoi]

With the price starting to creep up again do you think it's a good time to start selling some of my investments or do you think it's worth holding on for a while longer?

We all know how temperamental the market can be but do you think this is just a short term spike?

[kimmy724]

Proof of work relies so much energy on electricity when mining coins. Just consider the difficulty level to mine one block for bitcoin . So its logically impossible for bitcoin operation to be more energy efficient.

[privatum]

Yes if the miner tech changes (unlikely)
Yes, if bitcoin code changes (proof of stake) - unlikely
So probably - never

[BennyK]

According to environment news site Grist, if the currency’s growth continues on its current trajectory, it will use as much as the entire USA in just 18 months’ time.

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/888535/bitcoin-environment-destroying-planet-fossil-fuels-energy-electricity-Denmark-US-2020

By July 2019, the bitcoin network will require more electricity than the entire United States currently uses. By February 2020, it will use as much electricity as the entire world does today.

Source: https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-could-cost-us-our-clean-energy-future/

Carbon footprint per transaction (kg of CO2)   122.14

Source: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

Other person thinks digiconomist numbers are wrong and power consumption is much lower:

hypothetical Bitcoin market cap of $1 trillion still fails to incentivize miners to consume more than 800 TWh per year, or 0.74% of the world's consumption of energy

Source: http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-mining-is-not-wasteful/
http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption/

---
I am asking as a non developer looking for the links to project or the timeline of developing solutions to this problem. Thank You
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

With the fast growing in number of miners around the world each year, can i say the energy requirement increases relatively? The mining is designed in such a way that, as more miners join, the difficulty level in mining a single unit of Bitcoin increases. With this more sophisticated machines are then required which are power-hungry and consumes a lot of energy. Practically, it looks quite impossible for the bitcoin mining industry to be energy efficient.

[BenOnceAgain]

By July 2019, the bitcoin network will require more electricity than the entire United States currently uses. By February 2020, it will use as much electricity as the entire world does today.

Source: https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-could-cost-us-our-clean-energy-future/
---
I am asking as a non developer looking for the links to project or the timeline of developing solutions to this problem. Thank You
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

While I understand how extrapolating causes projections such as this, I have to say I believe that this level of energy consumption to mine Bitcoin is very unlikely to actually occur.

I can think of a number of reasons that would slow the amount of energy used to mine Bitcoin.  For example, if Bitcoin were consuming that much energy, the cost of energy would increase because the supply would become limited for all other purposes.  At some point, mining then becomes unprofitable, so effort would decrease, increasing the supply of electricity, etc.  Supply and demand dynamics.  Also, mining effort is likely to diversify further into other cryptocurrencies.  ASIC's cause many (and certainly nearly all serious Bitcoin miners) from having an easy ability to mine another currency at scale, as they are not able to be repurposed to other algos, unlike GPU mining.

Other factors come into play, such as the next halving of the block reward as well as difficulty decreases if mining effort causes the average time between blocks to lengthen past the target.

I just don't see any way possible that by 2020 all of the world's energy (as is used today) will be devoted to Bitcoin.  We don't grow electrical generation capacity fast enough to keep up.  So something will give.  I don't see the electrical generation side giving unless Bitcoin miners are going to start building power plants.  I mean large, industrial-scale power plants.  (For all I know they already have done this somewhere.)

I guess we shall see.  Certainly, energy consumption of mining is a concern to the extent that it provides a negative talking point about cryptocurrency.  It is also a legitimate concern with respect to the use of energy.  However, Proof of Work is a useful concept to slow the rate of coin emission.  I see coins that implement "proof of useful work", distributed computing work units, as a worthy way to mitigate this problem to some extent.  However, at this point at least, I would never recommend that this is implemented in Bitcoin.  The type of distributed computing work units are too diverse and more work should be done in this area (other technical and practical problems to confront and resolve) before it would ever be something I'd advocate for in a currency as important as Bitcoin.  This is an area that interests me and that I hope to spend some R&D effort on.

Best regards,
Ben

Edited to add: Currently, the incentives to mine Bitcoin cause a feedback loop where more mining effort is added to the network (energy usage increases), difficulty increases (due to more effort finding blocks faster).  Over the long term, this feedback loop will confront the realities of global energy supply being limited and/or cost of energy being priced out of profitability.  So this is a short-term phenomenon in my view.  If it became necessary, there are ways that software changes could change the economic balance, such as artificial difficulty increases or other changes to how difficulty was calculated, adjustment of the 10 minute/block target, etc.  I don't think anyone involved with Bitcoin wants it to consume all of the planet's energy.  And as I stated before, even if they did want that, I don't think the world would let that happen.

[Kprawn]

How much of the mining are done with Hydro, Geo-Thermal, and Wind sources? Did they bring that into the calculations when

they compiled this article? Did they consider the improvements that were done, since mining was done with GPUs and CPUs?

ASIC technology is very energy efficient, because it is specifically designed for mining Crypto currencies. We have no guilty

conscience, because we are using energy efficient technologies. 

[jvdp]

How much of the mining are done with Hydro, Geo-Thermal, and Wind sources? Did they bring that into the calculations when

they compiled this article? Did they consider the improvements that were done, since mining was done with GPUs and CPUs?

ASIC technology is very energy efficient, because it is specifically designed for mining Crypto currencies. We have no guilty

conscience, because we are using energy efficient technologies. 

Even graphic cards will consume 200 watts at least per card. So you will not find the safe way in mining. There is electricity issue everywhere whenever you go with mining the coins on GPU or ASIC hardware.
Since ASIC are very hard energy consumable one. If you does not have the cheap current nothing can be done. Electricity board should not give any trouble on minjng with this hardwares.

[LoyceV]

According to environment news site Grist, if the currency’s growth continues on its current trajectory, it will use as much as the entire USA in just 18 months’ time.

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/888535/bitcoin-environment-destroying-planet-fossil-fuels-energy-electricity-Denmark-US-2020

Bitcoin energy consumption went up so much because the price went up 2000% last year. If it would have continued for 18 months after December, 1 Bitcoin would be several million dollars by next year.
Now take several million dollars times 12.5 Bitcoin every 10 minutes, and you're talking about tens of billions of dollars per day that can be spent on electricity!
Obviously, the statement "if the currency’s growth continues on its current trajectory" has no basis other than creating a dramatic headline.

By July 2019, the bitcoin network will require more electricity than the entire United States currently uses. By February 2020, it will use as much electricity as the entire world does today.

Source: https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-could-cost-us-our-clean-energy-future/

Based on this logic, by March 2020 is will consume more energy than the entire world. Trust me, it's won't

I'm pretty sure the hash rate won't go up much if the price doesn't go up. Long-term, smaller block rewards and (hopefully) lower fees will reduce the amount of money miners can spend on power, leading to a lower energy consumption.

[Baoo]

I do not believe we will see any major changes any time soon about mining. Mining is huge business on it's own and it would not be easy to try to tweak the code there, I am sure many people will lose faith in bitcoin if it for some reason switch to some other consensus such as POS. Problem is real there, that's for sure and with popularity of bitcoin gaining more attention of the public, more people will try to mine it which means the network will consume even more energy.

Well, I do not agree with your view or conclusion, mining is a profitable business and there is considerable progress in the users of this field over time, despite that mining is expensive in price and it is consuming a great energy. Furthermore, I am pretty sure that the users of bitcoin will stay confident in Bitcoin, despite all the crises in value and different problems.

Furthermore, it is true that If there will remain a development in mining users will lead to large energy consumption, but there are always a solution like, alternative energy (solar energy) and other ways, and believe me, the era of Bitcoin will continue and with a big evolution, especially, if many governments will recognize it in the near future.

[zakalwe]

The trend has already been started. new consensus mechanism such as proof of stake and hybrid of POW and POS is already created that will not require much energy in order to mine Bitcoins. moreover, the energy efficient hardware especially made for mining has already started production and one of the prime example is ASIC hardware. may not now but in future, if not bitcoin other currency sure will be easy to mine.

[BitcoinNewbie15]

This is one of the two major problems with Bitcoin right now. Scalability is obviously the other one, but that one is currently being worked on. What can be done for Bitcoin to be more energy efficient? POW is far too valuable for it to change. Hardware will become more energy efficient as time goes on, but still BTC will be using a significant amount of electricity. With that being said, I do think its possible power consumption would start to stabilize/flat line after the next halving and more efficient hardware.

[vv181]

It is too sad to see the predicted statistics is getting worse, Bitcoin is dirty. The lightning network is being developed, and claimed should improve the Bitcoin scalability issue. We know that Lightning network is transacting and settling off-blockchain. Does that have anything to do with those growths?

[BrewMaster]

bitcoin energy consumption has never been a big issue and it will not be an issue for many many years. the consumption is not even high enough to raise any worries. the numbers are being quoted just to scare the public opinion. and unfortunately this tactic has started recently and probably to push some new agenda on bitcoin and so far we have been seeing the FUD side of it. we will soon find out what the real reason for it is though.

[Dmitry.Vastov]

According to environment news site Grist, if the currency’s growth continues on its current trajectory, it will use as much as the entire USA in just 18 months’ time.

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/888535/bitcoin-environment-destroying-planet-fossil-fuels-energy-electricity-Denmark-US-2020

By July 2019, the bitcoin network will require more electricity than the entire United States currently uses. By February 2020, it will use as much electricity as the entire world does today.

Source: https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-could-cost-us-our-clean-energy-future/

Carbon footprint per transaction (kg of CO2)   122.14

Source: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

Other person thinks digiconomist numbers are wrong and power consumption is much lower:

hypothetical Bitcoin market cap of $1 trillion still fails to incentivize miners to consume more than 800 TWh per year, or 0.74% of the world's consumption of energy

Source: http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-mining-is-not-wasteful/
http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption/

---
I am asking as a non developer looking for the links to project or the timeline of developing solutions to this problem. Thank You
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

I don’t think that this is very much big issue to be worried about because in my opinion I don’t that bitcoin takes that much of electricity that is hyperbole in the post . Bitcoin only uses internet for its operating and there is nothing to worry about this that it will create electricity problem in the future and to be that much that it will consumes more electricity than the entire world consumes right now, I think this is the work of bitcoin haters who does not want bitcoin to be legalised world wide.