And finally…Bitcoin takes three times more energy to mine than actual gold
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Mining cryptocurrency takes nearly twice as much energy than mining gold, platinum, and copper, according to new newly published research.
Computers can be used to complete huge calculations that require enormous amounts of processing power and are then rewarded with a coin when successful.
Bitcoin on its own, needs three times as much energy to mine than compared to gold, researchers from the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education in Cincinnati have found.
The institute tracked the daily energy demand and hashrate (the speed at which a computer is completing an operation in the Bitcoin code. A higher hash rate is better when mining as it increases your opportunity of finding the next block and receiving the reward) of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Monero between 1st January 2016 to 30th June 2018.
The researchers then used the average daily market prices of each cryptocurrency – and the respective rewards gained from successfully mining a block – to calculate how much energy it takes to generate one US dollar worth of each respective cryptocurrency.
The study found that Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Monero consumed 17, 7, 7, and 14 million joules of energy, respectively, to mine $1 worth of each cryptocurrency.
To put this into some kind of context, it would take 1 million joules of energy to lift about 110,000 tons, 1 meter off the ground.
In comparison to the conventional mining of metals, copper requires just 4MJ, gold requires 5MJ, and platinum needs 9MJ of energy to mine $1 worth of the precious metal.
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