Calculating Bitcoin Mining And Gold Industry Costs, Which Is The Most Wasteful?
JAKARTA - Many think Bitcoin (BTC) mining is more energy intensive than other activities. However, is that true? The researchers have presented their findings by comparing the energy use of Bitcoin and the traditional banking system.
The findings reveal that the banking system actually consumes more energy than Bitcoin. The research was conducted by one of the crypto money companies, Galaxy Digital.
They released their findings on Friday May 14. The published findings are entitled "About Bitcoin Energy Consumption: A Quantitative Approach to Subjective Questions".
Launching Cointelegraph, the results of the report were compiled by the Galaxy mining division team. The study claims the annual use of electrical energy from Bitcoin activity is around 113.89 maintained per hour. This amount includes Bitcoin mining activity, node power consumption and the like.
The Galaxy Digital team considers this number to be lower than the total energy use used by the banking system and the gold industry per year. In addition, Bitcoin energy consumption is transparent and easy to track in real time using the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index tool.
"The banking industry does not directly report electricity consumption data," wrote the report as quoted by Cointelegraph on Tuesday, May 18.
Galaxy Digital also revealed the energy consumption used by banking centers, ATMs, branch banks and card networks. All of this consumes as much as 263.72 TWh of energy on a global scale. Meanwhile, the gold industry consumes 260.61 TWh of power per year as predicted by Galaxy Digital.
The research results also state that oil fields currently produce 40 percent of the world's energy. On the other hand, these oil fields also often produce methane with a greenhouse effect that is more damaging to the environment.
"Bitcoin mining offers a solution," reads the report. "Companies like Great American Mining, Upstream Data, and Crusoe Energy System are building infrastructure to capture this methane above the wells (oil fields) and use the wasted gas to mine Bitcoin."
"This means oil producers can ensure a 24-fold reduction in emissions compared to dumping methane into the atmosphere," wrote the Galaxy Digital report as quoted by Bitcoin Magazine, Monday, May 17.
Galaxy Digital released the report after Elon Musk announced that Tesla was no longer accepting Bitcoin as a means of purchasing its electric car. The Tesla boss's decision was based on Bitcoin's very high energy consumption and endangers the environment because of the carbon emissions it generates.