In London, a recent study has found that one of the most iconic cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin [BTC] consumes as much electricity as the whole of Ireland does in a year. Research predicts that Bitcoin is going to use up around 0.5 % of the entire world’s electricity by the end of this year.

Estimating the rapidly increasing demand for electricity that the Bitcoin network requires in a year, there is a necessity for studying the impact of power consumption by the cryptocurrency. After properly understanding the demand for power, we have to come up with a sustainable electricity policy or find another renewable source of energy.

The study conducted was based on economic principles, which states that a single Bitcoin transaction consumes as much electricity as an average household in the Netherlands consumes during a month. The minimum electricity consumption of Bitcoin network is at 2.55 Gigawatt but the study predicts that the Bitcoin network could consume around 7.7 Gigawatt. Ironically it is around 0.5% of the entire world’s consumption.

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The Bitcoin network is completely dependent on computers for running its day to day transactions and utilizing other benefits of the Blockchain. They require computers which can time-stamp transactions into an ongoing chain to verify and prevent duplication of these transactions. The computers in the blockchain have to perform calculations continuously to create the next block of transactions in the particular chain. This hectic chain of events is called “mining” the coin, the user would be rewarded with 12.5 new coins for the successful completion.

Alex de Vries, an economist, and blockchain expert working for the PwC in the Netherlands has explained that they have seen a lot of back of the envelope calculations, but they require more scientific discussion on where this network is headed.

He is hoping that other people would also do more research on the matter, as the information available is not sufficient. The increasing electricity requirement means the higher production of electricity is definitely not going to help us reach our climate goals.

Cryptocurrency is a vital part of advancement in technology but we have to understand that we live in an environment where there are only limited resources. Sustainable development is the solution to this issue, we need to save energy for tomorrow.

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Author: Arjun B

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