Bitcoin mining activities later predicted would only make the perpetrators lose, but it actually makes them increasingly desperate.
Bitcoin mining is predicted to use 0.5% of total global electricity consumption by the end of this year. Although the numbers look a bit, the costs are still very large and can make miners no longer benefit from the activities of dredging one of the cryptocurrency types.
It is Alex de Vries, the blockchain expert, the technology behind the circulation of digital currency, which reveals these predictions. Based on his research, the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining has now reached 2.55 gigawatts, or almost equivalent to Ireland.
While at the end of 2018 later, he calculates that the figure will jump to 7.67 gigawatts, only a little behind from Austria. According to him, with the increasingly skyrocketing needs of miners Bitcoin will be electricity, then they can no longer enjoy the benefits of the process.
Even so, he estimates the perpetrators of digital currency mining will not stop even though the required cost is greater than the profit. This is what he think will cause new problems in the network.
A number of miners may steal electrical power as an alternative to mining Bitcoin without costing from the personal pocket or organization concerned. This is not just a prediction because it has happened before.
De Vries said that there is someone who mined Bitcoin worth up to USD 10,000 (Rp 140 million) by utilizing a supercomputer belonging to a college. As a result, the institution must bear the cost of USD 150,000 (Rp 2.1 billion) for Bitcoin mining activities they do not actually do.
Mine activity itself is a mechanism for issuing new Bitcoin, which also serves as a way for transactions to be validated and acceptable. This mining requires the completion of complex cryptographic puzzle computing problems.
Later, every 10 minutes, users who successfully complete the puzzle will get an incentive of 12.5 BTC per block, and apply multiples. Currently, there are still 3 million more Bitcoin stocks available, with 1 BTC worth in the range of USD 8,300 (Rp 116 million).
Bitcoin mining is not an easy thing to do. Required hardware with qualified specifications to complete cryptographic puzzles using a microchip named ASIC or through a series of combined GPUs. The need for high-powered computers that make the miners Bitcoin consume energy in large quantities.