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COIN TOSS

How Much It Costs To Mine A Single Bitcoin Around The World, Visualized

Adwait
Adwait
How Much It Costs To Mine A Single Bitcoin Around The World, Visualized
The energy needed to mine a single bitcoin could probably run a single household for 13 years.
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Using electricity-per-kilowatt cost data from the World Bank, US Energy Information Administration and Cable.co.uk, mineral processing organization 911metallurgist estimated how much it would cost to mine a single bitcoin around the world, and in the US — and if you'd turn a profit doing so. Here's what they found.


Key Takeaways:

  • Mining one bitcoin takes an estimated 1,449 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy, whereas one US household consumes around 893 kWh per month on average. In North America, the average cost of one kWh is 21 cents.

  • The cost of mining one bitcoin will likely cost you more than $5,000 all over the world, except in Kuwait, Algeria and Sudan.

  • Mining bitcoin in Venezuela, Solomon Islands and Antigua and Barbuda is the most financially irresponsible thing you can do and could set you back over $69,000 in losses after factoring in electricity costs.



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Via Visual Capitalist and 911metallurgist.

Comments

  1. Matthew Kostura 1 year ago

    According to the US EIA, the average household uses between 8200 and 13500 kwh/year of electricity (depending on the household region). So a single bitcoin takes between 39 and 66 days of total electricity depending on the household region.

    Of course if you are mining, the externalities that matter are the average price of power, not whether the power you use is put to a remotely practical use. The trading price of a bit coin is considerably higher than the power needed to mine one. So the most efficient miners win. Everyone else, not so much.

    As in investment scheme the historical comparison may be the proliferation of banks in the early 19th century, each which printed its own currency. In many cases those banks had no backing security (typically gold or silver) and as a result the worth of the currency fluctuated wildly. Some was worth very little. Bank failures were very common. The US experience of the 19th century lead to creation of a single currency. The surviving state banks then switched over to the national currency which marked the end of the so-called Free Banking system.

    To me, blockchains and cryptocurrency are solutions looking for a problem to solve. At best the approach solves the problem of a simple transaction problem in a rather peculiar and cumbersome manner while creating negative externalities. At worst it is nothing other than a grift.

  2. Megan Gwatney 1 year ago

    Why has energy consumption per Bitcoin become such a marketing push? Banks have multiple buildings and machines, plus the exchanges, but Bitcoin is the problem? Why are we talking about Bitcoin as if it’s worse than the dollar?

    1. Marcus Merrell 1 year ago

      Bitcoin is the problem because of the low volume of transactions that can be processed, as well as because of the redundant nature of "proof of work". It takes six hours for Bitcoin to process as many transactions as Visa can process in one minute--and that's just Visa... just one of the major banking firm. Major banks' cost-per-transaction is in the fractions of a penny, and the volume they process is impossible for a centralized blockchain like Bitcoin. Further, the side effect of the "proof of work" competition means that all the Bitcoin mining nodes all over the world are all hard at work on the same computations to add the next block, but only on node will win... so all the work done by all the other nodes is completely wasted by-product. It's collateral damage, wrought by a system designed to solve the wrong problems, badly.

      Check out "Line Goes Up" by Folding Ideas, on YouTube.

  3. Don Shannon 1 year ago

    Looks like there is a big typo at the beginning. 1,449 kWh is about 1.5 months of a household electricity use, not 13 years

    1. Adwait 1 year ago

      Yup, fixed that!

    2. Don Shannon 1 year ago

      Multiply by 100 to get to 13 years. Maybe it’s supposed to be 144.9 MWh?

      1. Andy Moss 1 year ago

        I think they have messed this up. The original article miss quotes the source which is cnet. They link to it but they confused different terminology. One Bitcoin transaction utilises 1449kwh, which I guess is not the same as mining 1 Bitcoin.

        I make 1449kwh * $0.21 = $304.29

        So I guess if you want to destroy the btc network, just make lots of 1cent trades and run it into the ground

        1. Brrrrrrrrrad 1 year ago

          One bitcoin transaction does not utilize 1449kwh, or anything close to that. The article is simply sharing how much it would cost you, in your area, to eventually mine yourself one bitcoin, which is worth over $23k right now.

          It's a bit confusing though as it makes it seem like it uses a ton of power to mine one new bitcoin *in general*, rather than for just yourself. Of course it's going to take a ton of work to get yourself one bitcoin.

        2. Andy Moss 1 year ago

          So a quick Google and no idea if the sources are talking nonsense, but…
          Mining 1btc uses 143,000kwh of leccy

          So 143,000kwh * $0.21 = $~30k

          But who knows if any of this is even true?

          https://minerdaily.com/2021/how-much-power-does-it-take-to-mine-a-bitcoin/

        3. Andy Moss 1 year ago

          FYI: I’ve no idea if this is even possible. Never gone near it

  4. Rich Love 1 year ago

    I knew it was bad but had no idea how much electricity it takes to mine crypto currency. This is lunacy to me. A few years ago everyone was so worried about electricity consumption that we all switched to LED lights. And now Texas customers are asked to conserve energy during the hot summer months and cold winters. Why? so a useless crypto currency can consume absurd amounts of electricity?

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