Hi steemians ,pavan is back with new topic we are all know about the Bitcoin is produced by mining but how many people know about the energy consumed by Bitcoin miners.
What is bitcoin mining?
Mining bitcoin is a hardware intensive process which requires the computer or a user to solve a mathematical problem. Once a solution is reached, a transaction is validated and resultantly a new block is created in the blockchain which contains the information related to that transaction. As a reward for validating the transaction, a ‘miner’ earns a new set of bitcoins.
However, by design, not every solution will lead to a block creation. It is more like a lottery, where there will be several hits and misses. Hence, logically, the probability of success increases if the number of attempts is greater. This is what drives miners to try more and which again results in greater consumption of electricity.
The global electricity consumption used for bitcoin 'mining' has reached a level that there are over 150 countries which consume less electricity in a year. In other words, if bitcoin was a country, at current value, it would stand at 62nd position in the world in terms of consuming electricity in a year.
As of November 22, the ‘miners’ have consumed 29.51 TWh (1 TWh= 100 crore units) of electricity, according to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index by Digiconomist. And, if the consumption keeps growing at the same rate, by the end of the year, it would stand at 38.36 TWh of electricity, placing it at 58th position, just below Hungary, in terms of total electricity consumption. In fact, the total energy consumption is more than that of Ireland which uses 23.79 TWh of electricity and North Korea at 11.24 TWh.
Similarly, mining ether or etherum — the next most valued cryptocurrency, has consumed 10.41 TWh of electricity as on Wednesday. That is almost the equal amount of electricity Paraguay consumes in a year.
At the current level, the electric energy which goes towards mining bitcoin would be enough for three crore (30 million) Indians