Bitcoin’s price is skyrocketing as it crossed $8000 mark, however, one of the most interesting facts, which has been ignored is the consumption of electricity while mining Bitcoins. Bitcoin’s current estimated annual electricity consumption is around 29.05TWh, which makes 0.13% of total global electricity consumption, according to Digiconomist (Bitcoin energy consumption index).
According to the analytics revealed by Digiconomist, Bitcoin mining is using more electricity than 159 individual countries, which is even more than Ireland or Nigeria. It means that if we collectively consider Bitcoin miners as a single country, they will rank on the 61st number in terms of electricity consumption.
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The past month specifically is considered as the peak time for Bitcoin’s price boost with price jump from $5000 to $8000. This also resulted in 29.98% increase in consumption of electricity during Bitcoin mining. Another surprising fact about the report is that if Bitcoin mining keeps increasing at this rate, it will consume all the world’s electricity by February 2020.
The report also estimates global mining revenues to be $7.2 billion while the global mining costs are around $1.5 billion. The research indicates that the Bitcoin mining now consumes more electricity than more than 20 countries in Europe.
Most of the latest smartphones these days are powerful enough to generate enough electricity for Bitcoin mining, as recently Samsung turned 40 Galaxy S5s into a Bitcoin mining rig.
