A common theme among crypto-deniers is that the case of Bitcoins lack of environmental awareness.
And their criticism is not exactly misplaced, since Bitcoin-mining eat insane amounts of energy. The world's energy supply is becoming more and more dedicated computers that solve complicated algorithms that maintain Bitcoins blocks. Bitcoins proof of work algorithm ensures that the network can run autonomously without requiring the inclusion of a trusted third party.
Alex Hern of the Guardian wrote: "Burning huge amounts of electricity are not random with bitcoin: instead it is embedded in the inner core of the currency in which the operation known as" mining ". In simplistic terms is bitcoin mining competition that are wasting the most electricity by making nonsensical arithmetic women till ions of times a second. "
Mining is the foundation of Bitcoins proof arbejdsalgoritmen and the main reason for Bitcoin energy. Although it is environmentally friendly, it is extremely important for the Bitcoin network. A new block added to its chain block every 10 minutes, which contains transactions that were picked up by miners and located in the block.
A miner creates these blocks and solve extremely difficult mathematical tasks to add these blocks to the chain. When he creates a block that gathers other miners up and keeps mining (verifies transactions inside it); After the 10 minutes passes, the block is added to the block chain. Every time a new block is added to the block chain, awarded miners with a new batch mined bitcoins as compensation for energy and computing power, they invested in mining.
Mining gets harder with time, since Bitcoin network has a limited supply of 21 million Bitcoin. When an event called the half happens, the miners cut in half and forcing miners to use more computing power / electricity if they want to keep mining as much as they did before. All this keeps the network's energy consumption in a continuously increasing way, and this trend will probably not end until 2140, where last Bitcoin is expected to be Minet
Digiconomist , a site created to track Bitcoins energy, announced a few days ago that the total power consumption of mining Bitcoin currently stands at an estimated annual level of 65.26 TWh (terawatt hours). This means that a Bitcoin transaction uses 850 kWh; To put this in perspective, 100,000 Visa transactions completed with only 169kWh electricity.
Said figures (also called Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index) is a shocking increase from the 36% that was recorded at the turn; all the signs are there that this index will continue to rise. As it stands, could Bitcoins annual energy consumption for the same period strengthen one of 160 world countries, including New Zealand, Denmark or the Czech Republic or about 6 million American homes.
Morgan Stanley researchers estimate that this rate does not slow decrease anytime soon; 2025 will kryptosfæren use more energy than all the world's electric cars combined. As the process becomes harder and more expensive with each passing day looking miners opportunities to circumvent and reduce the cost of mining Bitcoin.
As of today are added to 144 blocks BTC block chain Bitcoins generate and 1800 each day. The cost of mining a single Bitcoin in the United States amounts to cool 4,600 US dollars, which is still profitable a number. This number puts it on the 41st place on the list of the cheapest countries for my cryptocurrency.
For clarity is the cheapest country Venezuela, where a single Bitcoin cost 731 US dollars, and the most expensive is South Korea, where a single Bitcoin will cost you 26.170 US dollars to remind. Cheap and reliable sources of energy is struck by people who want to remind cryptocurrency.
As a direct result we have seen the Island, famous for its geothermal and hydroelectric power, is experiencing a real boom in crypto mining. The process accounts for about 90% of Iceland data center industry in terms of the electricity consumption, according to KPMG study. This does not sound good to the environment crew when Iceland is a country known for its preserved nature. An internet commenter expressed concern that so much of the country's electricity is addressed in a single company and held as follows:
"So when this stupid cryptocurrency bubble breaks, Iceland will suddenly lose 90% of the electrical demand that green is so worried about? Seem to remember the country was virtually bankrupt a few years ago. "
At the same time, China has vast sources of coal that makes its thermoelectrics very cheap. Thermal plants are a regular sighting in kulinrike rural areas of China, and from the recent Bitcoin-mining "farms". In fact, Bitcoin-mining become so popular in China because of cheap electricity and electronics, the country was the leading source of Bitcoin mining hash power; over two thirds of the total processing power used to remind this cryptocurrency come from China.
However, it seems a decomposition of these my business being on the road since the Chinese government outlined plans to curb the power supplied to Bitcoin miners. Still works mining alive and well in China and throughout the world as the total available hash rate keeps moving upwards.
How bad is bitcoin energy really?
While these figures alone and even in some contexts are extremely bloated, it enlarge a clearer picture of how much energy as cryptocurrency-mining actually use. According Digiconom is currently only 0.29% of total world energy consumption in Bitcoin-mining. The said Morgan Stanley study also adds:
"In the short term cryptocurrency power consumption a small percentage of global consumption, so we do not expect that it will affect the utility values in the medium term. But over time, the energy consumption of cryptocurrency and block chain technologies is likely to be a hot topic for use sector. "
So now the situation is under control. As for the future will be electric grid more and more overloaded by Bitcoin-mining. Since the pools of fossil fuels is slowly becoming exhausted, proposed many different solutions. Proof of effort algorithms are proposed frequently, since they use much less energy intensive processes to verify transactions and my crypto. Companies based combined mines that use multisourced energy, while some even run entirely on green energy.
Some coins (SKY for example) talking about "solar mines" that are not even mine workers; The idea of legitimate solar mines are still interesting. Overall, the environmental impacts of Bitcoin-mining is not sold. Cryptocurrencies is definitely the future, but rather than later, they begin to use renewable, green energy to