Bitcoin mining uses as much energy as mining for gold, study finds

Author: Reuben Jackson / Source: Big Think

• New study reveals that mining crypto can be use more energy than mine for gold.
• In order to understand the findings, we must first understand what crypto mining is.
• The crypto community is looking for a way to solve these issue.

According to a study published in the journal Nature Sustainability on November 5, from researchers Max J.

Krause and Thabet Tolaymat, it appears that mining cryptocurrencies — such as Bitcoin — uses more energy than conventional mining for copper and platinum. It may even use as much much energy — possibly more — than is used for mining gold. For some in the tech and environmental sectors, this isn’t new information. In fact, since Bitcoin’s inception, environmentalists and tech enthusiasts alike have brought attention to the energy-intensive process of mining the popular cryptocurrency.

Because of the new study, we now know, though, that the amount of energy required to mine Bitcoin is nearly twice as much as what’s required for mining copper and platinum. But why is it so energy expensive and what does this mean for the future and sustainability of the cryptocurrency movement?

What’s causing the energy consumption?

To better understand the study’s findings, it’s important to first have a basic understanding of what Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency “miners” are doing. Bitcoin is just one type of cryptocurrency, well-known as the original currency with the highest market capitalization, but it’s not the only currency in circulation. Along with many other coins and tokens, Bitcoins are digital currency that can be owned by anyone, transferred from one party to another, which are not issued by a central authority like the US dollar or other fiat currency.

The underlying technology powering Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies (though not all) is blockchain technology. The Bitcoin network relies on a decentralized network with a distributed ledger to keep track of all transactions. As people send and receive Bitcoins to each other, the network records the transactions. All of the recording is done by a large group of volunteers who maintain the network; these “volunteers” are the miners.

Those “mining” for Bitcoin aren’t physically mining, but rather solving difficult cryptographic puzzles proving they’ve recorded the correct transactions and are in agreement with the network before adding a block (a chunk of information, i.e. set of transactions) to the history of transactions in the past (i.e. the “chain”) — that’s how we end up with a “blockchain.” This is also how new Bitcoins are generated.

To accomplish this task, the Bitcoin network operates using a consensus mechanism called “Proof-of-Work” (PoW). This requires miners to do an extensive amount of processing and involves a lot of hardware running 24/7/365 in large amounts. If…

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