New research by the Dutch financial institution ING shows that the exponential expenditure of energy consumption demanded by the creation of the most acclaimed cryptocurrency of the moment, bitcoin, could kill its success and is intrinsic to its survival.

The report, produced by Teunis Brosens, ING's senior economist, based on data from the web digiconomist, indicates that this energy is around 200 kWh. In fact, the developer community must check that the operations are real, credible and that there is no deception. For proper verification, a large number of computer checks and connections between different computers are required, as indicated this Saturday by the Spanish news agency "La Vanguardia".

As demand for bitcoins grows, the creation and verification operations multiply. A few days ago, Christine Lagarde, president of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), warned that creating bitcoins already consumes as much energy as Argentina. And according to the data managed by the World Economic Forum, the energy needed to create bitcoins grows at an average of 25% per month.

With these projections, the figure is that in 2020 the creation of bitcoins could require all the energy consumed worldwide. This does not appear to be a very sustainable situation either ecologically or financially.