4 ms·
Even without the exact figures it should be obvious that the inefficiency in Bitcoin is astounding. Consider e.g. that the Bitcoin network performs about 400K
by femto113 7y ago
Even without the exact figures it should be obvious that the inefficiency in Bitcoin is astounding. Consider e.g. that the Bitcoin network performs about 400K transactions per day while the Visa network performs about 150MM transactions per day. That works out to 375x. Coincidentally Switzerland consumes about 1/375 of the world's electricity. If the Visa network used the same amount of electricity per transaction as Bitcoin it would require all of the electricity used by the entire world.
- viklove 7y agoDoes the amount of electricity used by the Bitcoin network scale with the quantity of transactions?
- femto113 7y agoBitcoin can't easily increase the quantity of transactions, so it's hard to answer that directly. Bitcoin transaction rates are currently limited by the time to mine a block and the number of transactions per block. Technical and political barriers exist to changing either of those numbers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem for more details.