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24 I Companies & Markets bne July 2024
bne:Tech
Who consumes the most power to mine bitcoins?
bne IntelliNews
As the global Climate Crisis gathers pace, Bitcoin miners are increasing their consumption of power, adding to the problems. The team at BestBrokers has calculated the average yearly power consumption for Bitcoin mining
in each country, ranking the biggest consumers of power to mine coins as of May 2024.
Following the recent halving of the Bitcoin block reward from 6.25 to 3.125 bitcoin, the electricity required to produce just
1 bitcoin doubled to a staggering 854,403.71 kWh, given the current Hashrate and mining hardware specifications.
BestBrokers also checked the cost of this power consumption at each country's local average business electricity rate per kWh as of April/May 2024 for the ten largest BTC mining nations.
Unsurprisingly, the US consumes the most power mining bitcoins, gobbling up 145.6 GWh and accounting for well over a third (37.9%) of the global power consumption. China comes in second with 81.2 GWh (21.1%) and surprisingly Kazakhstan is third with 50.9 GWh (13.2%). Together just these three
Daily Power Consumption mining Bitcoin by Country (GWh)
countries account for just under three quarters (72%) of all the power consumed in the world used to mine bitcoins.
The main conclusions from the report included:
• Currently, 450 bitcoins are mined daily worldwide, consuming 384,481,670 kWh of power. This amounts to 140,336 GWh annually, exceeding the annual electricity consumption of most countries, including Ukraine, the UAE and Argentina.
• US Bitcoin farms account for 37.84% of this global production, mining 170.41 BTC per 24 hours and consuming 145.6mn kWh daily. This totals 53,143.78 GWh annually and is about 1.34% of the country's entire power consumption, costing $6,749,259,557 at $0.127 per kWh.
• China, the second-largest Bitcoin mining country, produces 95.09 BTC per day, using 29,654.65 GWh annually, which is 0.38% of its total power usage. At $0.087 per kWh, this results in yearly electricity costs of $2,579,954,383.66.
Source: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index
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