Bitcoin to Use As Much Electricity As Entire Pakistan For Crypto Mining in 2021
Recently, there was a sharp decline in the price of BTC, it went to as low as $33,842 in July and the prices began to drop in the mining related tech, some people even panic sold their equipment, but the BTC price has risen again, the mining equipment is being sold as quickly as hot cakes and more miners with low efficient devices are joining the network, ultimately putting a strain on electricity.
The Bitcoin network is burning more and more energy for mining bitcoins, last year the energy consumed by the bitcoin network was estimated to be around 67 terawatt-hours (TWh) and it is believed that the expected energy consumption by the network will surpass the values of the previous year, touching new highs.
By the end of 2021, the network is set to consume 91TWh of energy globally which is as much as Pakistan, according to a research report by Bloomberg. Mining bitcoin requires a tremendous amount of energy, Satoshi Nakamoto; the infamous inventor of Bitcoin, compared Bitcoin mining to mining gold. According to research, it takes $12,500 to mine one block of Bitcoin.
The high use of electricity for mining bitcoin has also made it increasingly important to switch to low-carbon energy sources for electricity. The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Index made by the University of Cambridge says that; bitcoin’s power consumption is closely linked to the financial costs incurred in mining as well as bitcoin’s expected price trajectory, rising bitcoin prices and/or decreasing electricity costs generally lead to increased electricity consumption as less efficient hardware will be reinstated.
Elon Musk, owner of Tesla, known for hyping up the tech lover’s community and not delivering on his promises, took back his decision on accepting the BTC as a currency for risk from the customers for the electric cars amid ‘concerns’ over the environmental impact of the virtual currency.
However, in July at the Bitcoin-focused conference B Word, Musk said Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin once he “confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage is most likely at or above 50 per cent, and that there is a trend towards increasing that number,” Reuters had reported quoting Musk. The tesla owner has in the past seen changing the trends for several mining currencies with just a tweet and he received a lot of negative criticism for that.
In terms of countries that mine the most bitcoin, China had a share of 46 per cent monthly average share of global bitcoin mining hash rate as of April 2021 followed by 16.8 per cent of the US, 8.2 per cent of Kazakhstan, 6.8 per cent of Russia, 4.6 per cent of Iran, 3.4 per cent of Malaysia, 3 per cent of Canada, 2.81 per cent of Germany, 2.27 per cent of Ireland, and 5.92 per cent of others, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.
So, while Bitcoin only makes up 0.3 percent of the global energy consumption, it will require ever-more expensive and powerful mining machines, which most definitely will make Bitcoin consume more energy than Pakistan in the coming years.
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