At that rate and assuming 4tx per second a single Bitcoin transaction consumes 165kWh. A Tesla battery is bit over 50kWh. So let's round that to 3 full charges

At that rate and assuming 4tx per second a single Bitcoin transaction consumes 165kWh. A Tesla battery is bit over 50kWh. So let's round that to 3 full charges of Tesla battery. This seems like a roundabout way to analyze efficiency. A simpler way is just to look at how much it costs in dollars, rather than trying to convert everything into energy units. It varies but over the past couple months a Bitcoin transaction has cost from $7-$20. source: https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_fee https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f... That is more than it costs to power a Tesla driving 400 miles, yes, but the cost of that activity is dwarfed by the cost of the driver. You are missing all the energy it takes to create a human with the skills to drive a car, pay for their opportunity cost, and keep them alive for the time it takes to drive for 400 miles ;-) It's also more expensive than an electronic funds transfer, but it's comparable in price to wire fees, so it just depends on the details of your financial transfer whether it was efficient. Overall though that $20 fee is generally going to be dwarfed by the utility that a large financial transfer brings. It would be nice if it was cheaper but this doesn't seem like it's insanely wasteful or anything. It's really just demonstrating that it will be hard for Bitcoin to perform in small-value transactions like making a purchase at a retail store, in a way that people once thought it would.