Bitcoin to use 0.5% of world’s electricity by end of 2018

[drmilind2004]

Proof-of-Work electricity is the cost of decentralized currency. Inflation is the cost of centralized currency. Which is cheaper? via https://twitter.com/naval/status/996120405868994560

The solution is to devise a Proof-of-Work mining mechanism that isn't so resource hungry. But then, isn't that what every other new ICO aims to do?!

If we ever chance upon a Proof-of-Work that is as satisfyingly rigorous and meticulous as is the case with Bitcoin, then and only then will Bitcoin depreciate to the status of 'toy money'. But, if Bitcoin can happily co-exist with smart contract equipped Ethereum, it may well outlive others is well!

[Hazir]

I'd actually be more interested in seeing how big of a part green energy is of those statistics...
I'd imagine it could be a lot cheaper to generate your own power with either solar or wind, especially for large-scale mining operations.

Not really, not always, not everywhere. Sadly, in most cases, it is cheaper to use existing power network than to build alternative green powered one.
Plus, from what I know some large mining farms are still kinda undercover and would like to remain off the radar - with masses of solar collectors or wind turbines is impossible.

[Sonajin_Coin]

Proof-of-Work electricity is the cost of decentralized currency. Inflation is the cost of centralized currency. Which is cheaper? via https://twitter.com/naval/status/996120405868994560

The solution is to devise a Proof-of-Work mining mechanism that isn't so resource hungry. But then, isn't that what every other new ICO aims to do?!

If we ever chance upon a Proof-of-Work that is as satisfyingly rigorous and meticulous as is the case with Bitcoin, then and only then will Bitcoin depreciate to the status of 'toy money'. But, if Bitcoin can happily co-exist with smart contract equipped Ethereum, it may well outlive others is well!

I agree that we need a less power hungry PoW solution but also note that is sort of PoS which on many networks requires little computing power.  I don't believe Bitcoin and Ethereum mining will be possible or sustainable for much longer because of the cost vs reward and I don't think the world's power grid can take much more (this is why Ethereum is going Casper/PoS).

[PokerStein1]

Maybe after some time core developers will think about to change mining system.. They can find a more efficient way to mine bitcoin.

[Mr.Dick]

The estimates, based in economics, put the minimum current usage of the bitcoin network at 2.55 gigawatts, which means it uses almost as much electricity as Ireland. A single transaction uses as much electricity as an average household in the Netherlands uses in a month. By the end of this year, he predicts the network could be using as much as 7.7 gigawatts—as much as Austria and 0.5% of the world’s total consumption.

https://www.livemint.com/Money/3wU3b1IuMYZTl47zYkkcmN/Bitcoin-to-use-05-of-worlds-electricity-by-end-of-2018.html

With mining facilities looking to be more and more electrically efficient with the coming years, I feel they will be pushing our electrical technology to tiers that will help us on a global scale.

It'S kind of alarming how much engery is used, thats something which should be discussed, too.

[Phlaser]

More work in the morning industry of Bitcoin. This will increase more to be supplied in order to meet up with the power required for effective mining. Bitcoin is changing the world

The estimates, based in economics, put the minimum current usage of the bitcoin network at 2.55 gigawatts, which means it uses almost as much electricity as Ireland. A single transaction uses as much electricity as an average household in the Netherlands uses in a month. By the end of this year, he predicts the network could be using as much as 7.7 gigawatts—as much as Austria and 0.5% of the world’s total consumption.

https://www.livemint.com/Money/3wU3b1IuMYZTl47zYkkcmN/Bitcoin-to-use-05-of-worlds-electricity-by-end-of-2018.html

With mining facilities looking to be more and more electrically efficient with the coming years, I feel they will be pushing our electrical technology to tiers that will help us on a global scale.

[Ucy]

network hashrate recent minimum was 28 exahash = 2mill s9 ant miners at 14terrahash

now the top GPU does 1mhash so would need 14000 gpu to do 1 asics job. yet an asic only uses the electricity of a few gpu's, thus is more energy efficient than the past.

imagine how things would be if this was still a GPU hashing era, but with todays difficulty

28billion GPU's would use ALOT more electric

..
i wont even get into the details of the electric needed if we were in the CPU mining scenario at todays difficulty. as that electricity requirement would be soo much more.

What an interesting revelation! How about designing energy efficient/cheap GPUs for the Crypto world so that atleast with $200 to $500  MANY homes could afford new or fairly used GPUs. It is extremely important to decentralize mining space.

I wish some special funds can be set aside for research in this area. A lot of money is being made in the Crypto world but nobody is investing in researches. Who is going to research and develop these things eventually? — the controlled corporations, the "governments" = Centralization = anti-decentralization.

[amishmanish]

What an interesting revelation! How about designing energy efficient/cheap GPUs for the Crypto world so that atleast with $200 to $500  MANY homes could afford new or fairly used GPUs. It is extremely important to decentralize mining space.

I wish some special funds can be set aside for research in this area. A lot of money is being made in the Crypto world but nobody is investing in researches. Who is going to research and develop these things eventually? — the controlled corporations, the "governments" = Centralization = anti-decentralization.

This is a good point. As to who is doing the research? Who has the right incentive to ensure that mining becomes more energy efficient. Due to ASIC miners, the efficiency has increased manifolds compared to CPUs and GPUs but then you have more and more miners coming up.

Seems like the only upper limit to energy consumption is based on the amount of miners that the major mining hardware companies like bitmain, Cannan etc. can manufacture. Bitmain is the biggest player and we have seen announcements from the likes of Samsung and Intel to go into bitcoin mining. Due to the realtive monopoly here, Bitmain doesn't really need to become more efficient. If someone like Samsung suddenly came up with a more efficient miner, we may have some competition to make them more efficient as it directly affects the cost of mining and ROI.

Competition in manufacture of mining ASICs is one hope towards better miners. The other is when governments decide to do some positive regulation and stop giving away old coal-fired plants or cheap hydroelectric energy for mining. If "mining farms" are discouraged by policy measures, manufacturers will need to come up with efficient hardware to remain within policy guidelines.

[jseverson]

That's pretty interesting, but how are the numbers on a per country basis? China still seems to generate majority of the network's hashrate; does mining there cause any substantial damage to the country at all? I would guess that's a no, and that it would also be a no for any other country with significant mining operations. That means that this particular statistic isn't worth raising any alarms over.

Even if it does alarm regulators, they should be basing their decisions on statistics within their own country, because there's no point in citing worldwide numbers for domestic regulations. I don't think Bitcoin mining has ever caused severe power shortages anywhere yet, except maybe on some severely depressed areas, where it should probably be rightfully throttled.

[sieemma]

Bitcoin has helped most of us so it won't be too much a problem if it uses such an amount of electricity. There are industries that use more than such an amount yet we don't benefit from them. 

[stompix]

network hashrate recent minimum was 28 exahash = 2mill s9 ant miners at 14terrahash

now the top GPU does 1mhash so would need 14000 gpu to do 1 asics job. yet an asic only uses the electricity of a few gpu's, thus is more energy efficient than the past.

imagine how things would be if this was still a GPU hashing era, but with todays difficulty

28billion GPU's would use ALOT more electric

It would not have happened, without a price x10 or x100, we would have had a hashrate like BTG ....and we know what happened to that one  

The hashrate and thus the energy consumption is kept in check by the reward the miners get, those predictions about how much energy is going to be consumed are useless if we don't know the price per BTC.
Miners are still making profits right now, with a jump to back 20 000  or even further.... this is going to get really funny.

I don't know why people are surprised of this, it was known and discussed from long ago what will happen, for example

That's pretty interesting, but how are the numbers on a per country basis? China still seems to generate majority of the network's hashrate; does mining there cause any substantial damage to the country at all? I would guess that's a no, and that it would also be a no for any other country with significant mining operations. That means that this particular statistic isn't worth raising any alarms over.

Not yet, what if we triple the consumption or if we reach McAfee's prediction?
The consumption right now is negligible but if BTC grows it will go only one way..

[daarul50]

The use of bitcoin electricity is much less than the use of electricity by various industries in the world even we can not benefit from the existence of the industry and far inversely with bitcoin which has given some benefits for us all.

[laryillary]

The power consumption for mining bitcoin is growing at such a rate that if the pace continues, then by February 2020 this process will require all the electricity that humanity now consumes

[niz3r_nade]

I think the power source already supports mining. but most miners are looking for efficient electricity costs for them. they never pay attention to how much power they spend to run the mining tool.

[MrDom2]

https://themerkle.com/2-out-of-the-box-icos-that-will-surge-in-2018/

[kwabeedat]

Mining and electricity consumption is still an issue that people talk about. I think it's about time we supported green energy production. With that we can fuel our own mining farms and reduce the burden we put on national grid. But anyways this is crypto, we'll get a solution if it becomes a problem

[KingScorpio]

The estimates, based in economics, put the minimum current usage of the bitcoin network at 2.55 gigawatts, which means it uses almost as much electricity as Ireland. A single transaction uses as much electricity as an average household in the Netherlands uses in a month. By the end of this year, he predicts the network could be using as much as 7.7 gigawatts—as much as Austria and 0.5% of the world’s total consumption.

https://www.livemint.com/Money/3wU3b1IuMYZTl47zYkkcmN/Bitcoin-to-use-05-of-worlds-electricity-by-end-of-2018.html

With mining facilities looking to be more and more electrically efficient with the coming years, I feel they will be pushing our electrical technology to tiers that will help us on a global scale.

mark my words, the world will blame you and bitcoin for poverty and economic issues, the competing altcoins will blame you for poverty, local officials (to improve trust in their communal currency) will channel the hatred and anger of their poor on bitcoin and similar altcoins that just waste electricity or how i call them the "propaganda coins" bitcoin will be as much hated as it was initially supported.

i wrote a rump article about the inevitable consequences of this.

[tegarp90]

The estimates, based in economics, put the minimum current usage of the bitcoin network at 2.55 gigawatts, which means it uses almost as much electricity as Ireland. A single transaction uses as much electricity as an average household in the Netherlands uses in a month. By the end of this year, he predicts the network could be using as much as 7.7 gigawatts—as much as Austria and 0.5% of the world’s total consumption.

https://www.livemint.com/Money/3wU3b1IuMYZTl47zYkkcmN/Bitcoin-to-use-05-of-worlds-electricity-by-end-of-2018.html

With mining facilities looking to be more and more electrically efficient with the coming years, I feel they will be pushing our electrical technology to tiers that will help us on a global scale.

Yeah this is good for crypto, it proves ppl are start interesting about bitcoin or other crypto.
And also the miners is keep increasing the price of VGA cards and make it rare.
it's really hard to find nvidia 1080 in my country with a logic price and the stock is almost always 0

[jgaspar]

Wow! This is insane! all the things statistics about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general are insane for me now! I love it.

[Washball]

This is why Envion, which now turned out to be a scam or whatever, has a very successful ICO and raised more than $100 million in very short time. 31000 Investors believed in this mobile mining plan, making use of solar plants for sustainable energy.