Bitcoin Mining Is Wasteful Of Electricity, This Is Expert Opinion

Miner is mining bitcoin (SCMP)

JAKARTA - The fast increase in the value of bitcoin can make someone rich. On the other hand, bitcoin can also make someone fall into poverty in a short time. Bitcoin is becoming the most popular cryptocurrency among others.

Not a few people started mining massively. In fact, this bitcoin mining activity must use a computer that has high performance. Some miners use gaming laptop devices to collect as much bitcoin as possible.

This means that mining activities cannot be done with computer devices with low specifications. The rise of mining actually consumes very high electrical power.

According to the economics professor from the University of New Mexico, Benjamin Jones said that mining activity is higher than a country's electricity supply.

"Historically more than (used) all countries, such as Ireland", said Jones as quoted by The Guardian.

To mine this cryptocurrency, miners have to solve several complex algorithms that require very high electrical power. Initially, this mining activity could be carried out using an ordinary computer since it was first created in 2009.

Miners who want to mine large amounts of bitcoins have to solve algorithms that are more difficult than ever. Now, as many as 18.5 million bitcoins have been mined out of a total of 21 million bitcoins.

Benjamin Jones revealed that the electricity used for this activity has reached tens of terawatts of electricity each year.

Based on predictions from the Center for Alternative Finance from Cambridge, the use of electric power used to mine bitcoin is estimated to have reached more than 115 terawatt hours. Digicomist also reports that 80 terawatts of electricity have been consumed for this mining activity.

Not only is bitcoin mining activity wasteful of electricity, it turns out that bitcoin transactions are also more wasteful than other online activities. Digicomist said that one bitcoin transaction activity could generate carbon equivalent to 680 thousand transactions using Visa. Bitcoin transactions are also the equivalent of 51,210 hours spent watching YouTube.

However, mining activities or bitcoin transactions require the consumption of electric power using coal. Environmental activists say miners prefer to look for places with cheap electricity.

This means the electricity used is electricity that uses coal. Based on a report from Cambridge, which states that bitcoin miners are mostly practiced in China.