A new study shows the energy spent on mining Bitcoin this year alone has surpassed the average electricity consumed yearly by 159 nations. The high electricity demand in mining cryptocurrency presents a problem that needs to be addressed.
BITCOIN ENERGY USE
Bitcoin values have been soaring over the past couple of weeks. That’s cause for celebration for those who invest in the cryptocurrency; however, it looks like the price of Bitcoin isn’t the only thing that’s skyrocketed in 2017. Cryptocurrency mining energy use has also reached new heights.
According to a research conducted by a U.K.-based energy comparison tariff service called PowerCompare, the average electricity used to mine bitcoin this year has surpassed the annual energy usage of some 159 countries. Specifically, the global average energy spent on bitcoin mining has far exceeded the electricity consumption in Ireland and most African nations.
The new research used data provided by Digiconomist, whose current estimate of electricity used to mine bitcoin is around 30.14 TWh annually. That’s way above Ireland’s 25 TWh yearly average electricity consumption. In fact, according to a recent paper from Dutch bank ING, a single bitcoin transaction consumes enough energy to power the average household for an entire month. Digiconomist also found that Ethereum, the second most popular cryptocurrency today, also uses more than a country’s worth of electricity.
In order to work around the energy-intensive requirements of cryptocurrency mining, some have resorted to using malware to siphon off computational power from other people’s computers. As a more viable solution, others have suggested “farming” for crypto coins instead, using a more eco-friendly verification model that looks at proof of time and storage instead of the energy-hungry proof of work scheme used in Bitcoin.
Ethereum, on the other hand, is planning to go for a proof of stake model by 2018. Meanwhile, a creative solutions lab at Samsung has offered an alternative that turns old smartphones into a crypto coin mining rig.
The sooner we find ways to make cryptocurrency mining energy use “greener,” the better it would be for us and for blockchain, a technology that could potentially transform every industry in the world.
SOURCE: https://futurism.com/mining-bitcoin-costs-more-energy-159-countries-consume-year/