Bitcoin mining surpasses electricity consumption of 20 European countries

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Bitcoin has seen a rapid rise in value in the past several months. Mining activity for the cryptocurrency has also increased along with the electricity use of machines that do the mining.

Website Power Compare released a comparative analysis which shows how Bitcoin mining has gotten quite expensive. According to data from the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, power consumed by Bitcoin mining machines have started to surpass that of more than twenty countries in Europe alone.

Image: Power Compare official website

In the United States, mining eats up more electricity, compared with the electricity use of 12 of its states.

Image: Power Compare official website

The cause lies in the very basic algorithm of Bitcoin. Mining a new Bitcoin or essentially creating a new block in a blockchain system gets more difficult over time. More computations are needed, thus the machines tasked with accomplishing this also require more power to do their job.

If the trend continues, estimates say that Bitcoin mining will consume all of the world’s electricity by February 2020.

Bitcoin, as of this writing, has a market value of more than $8,800 (about P440,000). JB

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