When will Bitcoin be more energy efficient?

[automaticmoney]

if bitcoin converted to solar energy then we can expect bitcoin mining will be environmentally friendly hopefully after 2020 we may expect bitcoin is depending on solar and wind energy based electricity for mining

[glenntalbot]

The mining machines can be built more energy efficiency but i can assure that they are going to be way more expensive so it is probably not worth it at the end. I have seen some good projects from the Canadians and other countries that seem promising tho...

[Stac]

 Bitcoin energy consuming is the latest talk now a days in the public . Bitcoin is certainly using more power and there is nothing to worry or get panic Bitcoin mining is exploding more where there is more supply of energy and power is supplied cheaply like place Pacific North West where energy is produced by hydro power. In Iceland in  .Europe  is becoming famous for Bitcoin running since this  nation is having abundant supply of geothermal and hydro thermal The consumption of  global  power energy is  grown  high   so the miners are shifting towards more energy available countries and cleaner part of the world so there is no need of blaming excess usage of power Bitcoin mining ..

[Vaskiy]

Making bitcoin more energy efficient isn't that easy, it needs to be provided with the adequate supply of power. It can be done through some conventional sources. These setups were highly profitable for the large scale mining farms. With small scale farms using of normal power or else with a generator seems efficient.

[mornabo]

it gives to me an impression that if that is true, that there is massive mining in Sichuan, maybe in that area is some renewal sourced electricity surplus and so it is cheap and someone taken an advantage of that.

In general, hydropower is the cheapest form of energy, and Sichuan has many high capacity hydroelectric plants, thanks to it's four rivers. Unlike heavy industry, Bitcoin miners can easily move to the area with cheapest electricity, so it makes perfect sense they end up close to hydropower plants.

I get the feeling people think about solar panels when they read "renewable energy". Hydropower has a large impact on the landscape by flooding valleys. There's also a study that show Hydroelectric dams emit a billion tonnes of greenhouse gases a year.

We know that electricity is the main source for using bitcoin like running your cellphone or computer, and we know that electricity is included in a resource that is environmentally friendly, especially if electricity is generated from hydropower or sunlight, we don't need to worry about this actually

[jeromix]

bitcoin will be more efficient when it will be adapted, regulated by a third party like a government. This is why we should push through so as to possobly get a good results especially in marketing or utilizing bitcoin and other crypto in the market.

[remotemass]

Bram Cohen, the inventor of torrents and BitTorrent is working on it with a crypto name Chia.

[pushups44]

Bitcoin's energy consumption will continue to rise as the network grows, and the only way to counter this trend is by emphasizing the use of renewable energy to mine and secure the network. I am hoping nations will be proactive in promoting alternative sources of energy to tackle this problem.

[fianaindriati]

every day the growth of bitcoin often increases. but sometimes the increase only occurs temporarily. but even though it's temporary but the situation is always increasing as the bitcoin journey is in demand by many people.

[U20]

Bitcoin isn’t used physically virtual money. So It only needs electricity to be mined.
İf it supported by eco-friendly energy, a serious saving is achieved with bitcoin. Most importantly, hundreds of devices are the source of electricity for mining.

[kingpin4321]

Energy is what runs the mining of bitcoin process.
And this bitcoin mining requires a huge deal of energy for the transcation to go through. I don't think that bitcoin energy would be lesser

[qtronix]

Perhaps in the future bitcoin will be more energy efficient, but so far a lot of energy is spent on its production. Mining has not effective for a long time and all bitcoin mining is concentrated in large video card holders.

[postcd]

"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"

https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/july/bitcoin-energy-use-mined-the-gap.html

"bitcoin mining is likely responsible for 10‑20 Mt CO2 per year, or 0.03-0.06% of global energy-related CO2 emissions."

(as of November 2018)

"The corresponding annual carbon emissions range from 22.0 to 22.9 MtCO2 ... This level sits between the levels produced by the nations of Jordan and Sri Lanka"

https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/july/bitcoin-energy-use-mined-the-gap.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2542435119302557

"Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency by market value, processes more than twice as many transactions as the bitcoin network while using only about one-third of the electricity consumed by bitcoin. ETH also operates on a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism"

https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/july/bitcoin-energy-use-mined-the-gap.html

Ethereum and Litecoin are more energy efficient:

"From 1 January 2016 to 30 June 2018, we estimate that mining Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Monero consumed an average of 17, 7, 7 and 14 MJ to generate one US$, respectively. Comparatively, conventional mining of aluminium, copper, gold, platinum and rare earth oxides consumed 122, 4, 5, 7 and 9 MJ to generate one US$, respectively, indicating that (with the exception of aluminium) cryptomining consumed more energy than mineral mining to produce an equivalent market value."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0152-7

[coolcoinz]

if bitcoin converted to solar energy then we can expect bitcoin mining will be environmentally friendly hopefully after 2020 we may expect bitcoin is depending on solar and wind energy based electricity for mining

Oh, so you think the production of solar panels is both cost efficient and eco friendly? Solar panels aren't the permanent solution. They are expensive, prone to damage, need to be maintained (cleaned) and replaced after a while because they tend to lose some of their efficiency over time. Old panels will maintain only 30% of their nominal output. There are no buy and forget solutions in this industry.

[Ucy]

Energy is what runs the mining of bitcoin process.
And this bitcoin mining requires a huge deal of energy for the transcation to go through. I don't think that bitcoin energy would be lesser

If Proof of Works survives and becomes very environmentally friendly, it'd probably be because we began to:
— Mine Bitcoin with renewable clean energy. And not really non-renewable clean energy.

— Mine Bitcoin with cheap and easy-to-manufacture hardware

— eliminate monetary rewards for miners to decrease the tendency of centralized mining. Instead, reward miners with other forms of incentives like rank upgrade, loyalty reward, and with points that can only be used within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Such points could be traded peer-to-peer, used for buying limited products and services.

[bitbunnny]

Consumption of energy to mine Bitcoin is probably rather big. Still the number of mined Bitcoin is limited so energy consumptiom for mining will not last forever. Also, I don't think that currently Bitcoin is representing the biggest problem when it comes to energy and environment saving.
Still some alternative energy sources could be the solution for more efficency although I'm not sure if that is feasible.

[1Referee]

"Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency by market value, processes more than twice as many transactions as the bitcoin network while using only about one-third of the electricity consumed by bitcoin. ETH also operates on a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism"

https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/july/bitcoin-energy-use-mined-the-gap.html

This doesn't take into consideration how much more secure Bitcoin's transactional network is compared to Ethereum. Ethereum needs several days of POW to match the same level of security of just one day of Bitcoin POW. Saying that Ethereum processes more transactions with just a third of its electricty consumed (as in it being unnecessary to consume more electricity) is shortsighted.

If we look at how much on-chain transaction activity there was in the last 24 hours, dollar wise, then the stats speak for themselves;

https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/ $5 billion
https://bitinfocharts.com/ethereum/ $244 million

[sehoon]

There are articles now that says that bitcoin's energy consumption isn't that bad. And at the present day, people are on the trend of mining in the places where there is cheap electricity, low carbon resource, and the availability of a strong hydropower. But like in China where 60% of the countries' power is from coal, it is going to be an issue and the carbon footprint produced from it as well.

[Jet Cash]

Increase the block generation interval to 20 minutes, that should slow things down.

[figmentofmyass]

But like in China where 60% of the countries' power is from coal, it is going to be an issue and the carbon footprint produced from it as well.

there's a lot of fear mongering about coal-powered bitcoin mining in china, but looking at the big picture, i'm not sure it's well founded. consider this study published a few months ago which found that a significant majority of bitcoin mining is powered by renewable energy sources:

But another recent study by CoinShares, a cryptocurrency asset management and analysis firm, found that the majority of the electricity used by bitcoin actually comes from clean sources, like wind, solar, and hydropower. CoinShares says bitcoin network gets 74.1 percent of its electricity from renewables, making it “more renewables-driven than almost every other large-scale industry in the world.”