Blockchain Energy Consumption Index

Making cryptocurrencies less energy hungry will mean reengineering how blockchains work.

Blockchain energy consumption index.

Lee may 17 2018 1 23 pm utc. Study reveals bitcoin s electricity consumption is underestimated and finds the network represents close to half of the current global data centre electricity use august 2020. The bitcoin energy consumption index provides the latest estimate of the total energy consumption of the bitcoin network. This allowed statistics websites to arrive at a certain number of watts consumed per gigash per second gh s.

Oecd blockchain primer power consumption and energy footprint. The bitcoin energy consumption index provides updated footprint calculations for the cryptocurrency. New study quantifies bitcoin s ludicrous energy consumption bitcoin could consume 7 7 gigawatts by the end of 2018. One estimation is that bitcoin alone consumes 57 8 twh each year close to the annual energy consumption of algeria compared to a global banking network with similar capabilities but centrally controlled this is a vastly higher energy requirement.

These key assumptions have been criticised to overestimate electricity consumption. Prior to the launch of bitcoin energy consumption index energy consumption estimates for bitcoin typically included assumptions on what number of machines were still active and how these machines were distributed. The cbeci is maintained by the cambridge centre for alternative finance ccaf at judge business school university of cambridge. By far the most frequently cited estimate in news media is the bitcoin energy consumption index beci which uses a top down approach that assumes miners spend on average 60 of their revenues on electricity at a rate of 0 05 usd kwh.

In the world of sustainability it s being considered for applications from energy trading schemes to supply chain transparency to food safety however as people envision hope filled plans for how it could change the world they often overlook blockchain s non sustainable energy consumption. Cbeci it means bitcoin accounts for roughly 0 25 percent of the world s. The average yearly energy consumption of the bitcoin network exceeds that of the entire nation of switzerland. A legitimate cause for concern in the use of public blockchains is the significant environmental impact from the energy consumption required.

Blockchains use massive amounts of energy but there s a plan to fix that. Indeed beci estimates.