Revelations from the New York Times show that Bitcoin mining alone in the US consumes as much electricity as millions of homes. Will the US soon be pulling the plug?
It has been known for a long time that Bitcoin consumes a lot of electricity. However, investigative research by New York Times show the full extent. According to this, the 34 largest Bitcoin data centers in the USA alone consume as much electricity as three million US households. In absolute numbers, that’s 3,900 megawatts of electricity (3.9 million kilowatts).
Particularly spicy: The lion’s share of the electricity for Bitcoin mining, namely 85 percent, comes from fossil power plants. The resulting CO2 emissions are equivalent to those of 3.5 million cars with internal combustion engines. The high electricity demand of the Bitcoin miners is also said to have increased the electricity price for the general public in Texas by five percent.
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While in the past most bitcoin mining took place in China, as of June 2021 the lion’s share of bitcoin mining takes place in the United States. As of January 2021, US bitcoin mining farms accounted for over 37 percent of global bitcoin mining. China is second with a roughly 21 percent share of global bitcoin mining, followed by Kazakhstan, Russia and Canada in third, fourth and fifth place.
The figures presented by journalists from the New York Times relate only to the US market. The global electricity consumption of Bitcoin is therefore likely to be about three times as high.
The journalists also point out that there are ways to run cryptocurrencies with significantly less electricity. Over the past year, Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market value, has reduced the power consumption to run the network by more than 99 percent by changing the algorithm (Proof of Stake instead of Proof of Work).
The recent revelations of New York Times have so far had no influence on the Bitcoin course. Bitcoin is currently slightly up at EUR 30,210 (as of April 12, 2023, 3:05 p.m.).
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Author: Ferdinand Hammer wallstreet:online central editorial office
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