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According to the study, during the 2020-2021 period, the entire global Bitcoin mining network consumed 173.42 Terawatt-hours of electricity. Half the consumption of Italy. The numbers obiusly are in progress in the last years.
If Bitcoin were a country, its energy consumption would rank 27th in the world, ahead of a country like Pakistan with a population of more than 230 million people.
Could you have even imagined this? what mind-boggling numbers.
How much fossil fuel they consume:
The carbon footprint is equal to having burned 84 billion pounds of coal or the operation of 190 natural gas-fired power plants. To offset this footprint, 3.9 billion trees would have to be planted, covering an area almost equal to that of the Netherlands, Switzerland or Denmark or 7% of the Amazon rainforest.
And again: the amount of water that is used to mine Bitcoin is 1.65 cubic kilometers, the same water that is in over 660,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, enough to meet the current domestic water needs of over 300 million people in rural sub-Saharan Africa... ... my head is spinning I admit. The land footprint of Bitcoin mining worldwide during this period was 1.4 times the area of Los Angeles.
Indeed, recall that Bitcoin mining relies on fossil energy sources, with coal accounting for 45% of the mix of energies used to produce them, followed by natural gas (21%). Hydropower is in third place with 16%, followed by nuclear power (9 %), and finally renewable energies such as solar and wind provide only 2% and 5% of the total electricity used by Bitcoin.
Keep in mind that Italy is the country where cryptocurrency mining costs the most, so it is much more inconvenient. While in China, a giant country by comparison, it can be described as the "Bitcoin mining nation"
