4 ms·
The current bitcoin total hash rate is obviously public information (currently about 6E20 hash/second). I was also able to find a report on average network-wide
by jakeinspace 3y ago
The current bitcoin total hash rate is obviously public information (currently about 6E20 hash/second). I was also able to find a report on average network-wide hashing efficiency, which is obviously self-reported, but is at least in line with logic (just slightly trails the current highest efficiency ASIC miners). That gives around 13 GW of total instantaneous power consumption. The US produced around 4000 TWh last year, which is an average of about 460 GW of power. That would make global bitcoin power consumption equal to about 2.8% of US energy production.
It looks like estimates for global energy production are over 30 TWh last year, so that would mean bitcoin is around 1/3rd of one percent of total global power usage.
Note that’s just bitcoin, not all of crypto.
- mistrial9 3y agoglobal energy use for BTC mining is equal to X percent of US energy.. that sounds exactly right, and the basis of the question
- pstrateman 3y agoSo bitcoin uses about 0.3% of energy production. That means the 2% claim is an order of magnitude lie.
- AlotOfReading 3y agoThe EIA was recently ordered to start investigating/receiving reports on the actual numbers after a preliminary report indicated it was consuming between 0.6%-2.3% of total US consumption: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61364 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61364