More Energy Is Put Into Bitcoin Than Denmark

A researcher at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education and lead author of a study in the journal Nature Sustainability, Max Krause said:  “we now have an entirely new industry that is consuming more energy per year than many countries." Speaking to AFP, “in 2018, Bitcoin is on track to consume more energy than Denmark." In 2015, Denmark used up 31.4 billion kilowatt hours in electricity and as of July this year, Bitcoin mining has alone used up around 30 billion kilowatt hours according to the study. Mining Bitcoin takes up hundreds of linked computers running several intensive calculations in search of the internet equivalent of metals. This is something that can take days, weeks and even months and sometimes you may not see a result. As mentioned by News24, new coins are awarded to those who complete the calculations first with the transaction confirmed and entered into the currencies shared public ledger which is known as blockchain. Bitcoin amounts for more than half of the total market value of the top 100 cryptocurrencies which is arodun $215 billion according to CoinMarketCap. Krause stated:

"We wanted to spread awareness about the potential environmental costs for mining cryptocurrencies. Just because you are creating a digital product, that doesn't mean it does not consume a large amount of energy to make it."

“A complete calculation of the environmental cost of virtual currencies would take into account the banks of computers used to mine them.”

"They are run aggressively, which means the hardware is destroyed much quicker than you or I would expect for regular use – maybe a year instead of five or ten."