Cwpe 1948
Cwpe 1948
Cwpe 1948
24 May 2019
After its introduction in 2008, increasing Bitcoin prices and a booming number of other cryptocurrencies
lead to a growing discussion of how much energy is consumed during the production of these currencies.
Being the most expensive and the most popular cryptocurrency, both the business world and the research
community have started to question the energy intensity of bitcoin mining. This paper only focuses on
computational power demand during the proof-of-work process rather than estimating the whole energy
intensity of mining. We make use of 160 GB of bitcoin blockchain data to estimate the energy
consumption and power demand of bitcoin mining. We considered the performance of 269 different
hardware models (CPU, GPU, FPGA, and ASIC). For estimations, we defined two metrics, namely;
minimum consumption and maximum consumption. The targeted time span for the analysis was from 3
January 2009 to 5 June 2018. We show that the historical peak of power consumption of bitcoin mining
took place during the bi-weekly period commencing on 18 December 2017 with a demand of between 1.3
and 14.8 GW. This maximum demand figure was between the installed capacities of Finland (~16 GW)
and Denmark (~14 GW). We also show that, during June 2018, energy consumption of bitcoin mining
from difficulty recalculation was between 15.47 and 50.24 TWh per year.
Energy Consumption of Bitcoin Mining
Sinan Küfeoğlu 1,*,+ and Mahmut Özkuran 2,+
1 Energy Policy Research Group, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1TN, UK
2 School of Arts and Social Sciences, Istanbul Technical University, 34467 İstanbul, Turkey
* Corresponding author: [email protected]
+ these authors contributed equally to this work
ABSTRACT
After its introduction in 2008, increasing Bitcoin prices and a booming number of other
cryptocurrencies lead to a growing discussion of how much energy is consumed during the
production of these currencies. Being the most expensive and the most popular cryptocurrency,
both the business world and the research community have started to question the energy intensity
of bitcoin mining. This paper only focuses on computational power demand during the proof-of-
work process rather than estimating the whole energy intensity of mining. We make use of 160 GB
of bitcoin blockchain data to estimate the energy consumption and power demand of bitcoin
mining. We considered the performance of 269 different hardware models (CPU, GPU, FPGA, and
ASIC). For estimations, we defined two metrics, namely; minimum consumption and maximum
consumption. The targeted time span for the analysis was from 3 January 2009 to 5 June 2018. We
show that the historical peak of power consumption of bitcoin mining took place during the bi-
weekly period commencing on 18 December 2017 with a demand of between 1.3 and 14.8 GW. This
maximum demand figure was between the installed capacities of Finland (~16 GW) and Denmark
(~14 GW). We also show that, during June 2018, energy consumption of bitcoin mining from
difficulty recalculation was between 15.47 and 50.24 TWh per year.
1
1. Introduction
Cryptocurrencies and their energy consumption have become a popular subject of discussion
over the last couple of years. Bitcoin, the most well-known and most expensive cryptocurrency, was
first introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym of an author or group of authors, in 2008. There
are significant differences in bitcoin’s energy consumption estimations since there are too many
unknowns in the process, such as which type of hardware is used in the mining and for how long.
This ambiguity necessitates an extensive analysis that will cover all bitcoin transactions from 2009
until today.
Bitcoin mining is a decentralized computational process, where transactions are verified and
added to the public ledger, known as the blockchain. Nakamoto explains the working principles of
bitcoin mining in detail in his paper [1]. Bitcoin networking started in 2009 with its unique currency
bitcoin or BTC. The bitcoin network is a peer-to-peer, distributed network. In this network, all nodes
are treated as equal peers. The process of making bitcoins is called mining, and the participants are
called miners. All transactions are carried out and stored in a distributed ledger: the blockchain. The
historic transaction data are contained in the blockchain. A signature between the new block and the
previous block is needed for adding a new block to the blockchain. This is done via finding a nonce
value that will satisfy the cryptographic hash function, Secure Hash Algorithm 256-bit (SHA-256).
The nonce starts with 0 and is incremented by 1 by the miner until the hash of the block is less than
or equal to the target value. Once a node finds a hash that satisfies the required number of zero bits,
it transmits the block it was working on to the rest of the network. The other nodes in the network
then express their acceptance by starting to create the next block for the blockchain using the hash of
the accepted block. The finder of the block is rewarded for their efforts with a special transaction.
Creators of a block are currently allowed to send 12.5 newly created coins to an address of their
choosing. This is a fixed reward that halves every four years (210,000 blocks). On top of the fixed
reward, a variable amount of transaction fees is received as well. The reward provides an incentive
to participate in this type of network. To keep the flow of rewards stable, the network self-adjusts the
difficulty of hash calculations, so new blocks are only created once every 10 min on average.
Cryptography takes an important place in Bitcoin transactions with private and public keys. Private
keys in the Bitcoin network are 256-bit long numbers that are created randomly in wallet creation.
These randomly generated numbers provide security for Bitcoin transactions as they are infeasible to
crack. Private keys are used to sign transaction messages and provide authenticity for the messages
as only the owner of the bitcoin address knows the private key. Public keys are complementary to
Private keys and allow checking of the authenticity of messages. Public keys are 512-bit long numbers
that are derived from Private keys. Unlike Private keys, Public keys are shared in the Bitcoin network
and are available to every node. Figure 1 shows a simple diagram how bitcoin mining is completed.
Figure 1. Bitcoin mining process.
During the mining process, the miner computes the hash of a block of transactions and the
summary information of the previous block. The block has a ‘nonce’ value and the miner randomly
chooses a nonce value so that the hash of the block is smaller than a target, which is periodically
recalculated by the network. Random attempts for nonce values to find a valid hash is called as proof-
of-work. This process needs computational effort, which is measured in Gigahashes per second. The
more computational power a miner has, the bigger the share of all distributed rewards that go to that
miner. This is the part where the energy consumption of bitcoin mining takes place. This paper aims
to present a detailed analysis and estimation of the energy consumption of bitcoin mining by focusing
on the use of computational power during the proof-of-work process, and hence the mining process
only. In our study, we analyzed 160 GB of blockchain bitcoin data. We deliberately excluded the
estimation for energy intensity of bitcoin mining more generally since it will include all processes
including the use of external cooling systems and their energy consumption.
To calculate the energy consumption of the process, we will proceed step-by-step. The power
demand of the bitcoin mining is calculated as:
𝑁𝐻 ∗ 𝐸𝑜𝐻
𝑃= (1)
1012
with:
• Power (P) (MW)
• Network Hashrate (NH) (MH/s) (Total hash problems solved per second in Bitcoin network)
• Efficiency of Hardware (EoH) (J/TH) (Energy consumed by hardware per Tera hash problems
solved)
The Network Hashrate is calculated as follows:
232
𝑁𝐻 = 𝐷 ∗ (2)
𝐴𝑆𝐵𝐵
with:
• Difficulty (D)
• Network Hashrate (NH) (hash/s)
• Average Seconds Between Blocks (ASBB) (s) = 600
The Efficiency of Hardware (EoH) is defined as:
𝐽
𝐸𝑜𝐻 = (3)
𝑇𝐻
with:
• Efficiency of Hardware (EoH) (J/TH) (Joules per Tera Hash Calculations)
• Energy (E) (J)
Hash Operations (H) and Tera Hash Operation (TH) where
𝑇𝐻 = 𝐻 ∗ 1012 (4)
Now, we should calculate the average time between two blocks:
𝐴𝑆𝐵𝐵 1
𝐴𝐻𝐵𝐵 = = (5)
3600 6
with:
• Average Hours Between Blocks (AHBB) (h)
• ASBB is 600 s
• Block Count Between Difficulty Recalculation (BCBDR) = 2016
Then, we calculate the average time between difficulty recalculation. Let us define the Average
Time Between Difficulty Recalculation (ATBDR) (h)(days), then,
1
ATBDR = 𝐵𝐶𝐵𝐷𝑅 ∗ 𝐴𝐻𝐵𝐵 = 2016 ∗ = 336 h = 14 days (6)
6
This means that we need to update the Difficulty data every 14 days. We calculate the minimum
and maximum power demand and energy consumption of mining. Minimum energy consumption
means that the mining is done via the most efficient hardware available in the market for the given
time span (14 days in this case). Since hardware efficiencies are publicly available, it is
straightforward to acquire this data. It is given in detail in the Appendix. Minimum power demand
is calculated as follows:
𝑁𝐻 ∗ 𝑀𝑖𝑛(𝐸𝑜𝐻)
𝑃𝑚𝑖𝑛 = (7)
1012
Calculating the Maximum is the challenging step. Let us first define the Electricity Cost per
Bitcoin (ECPB):
𝑇𝐸𝐶𝑃𝐵 ∗ 𝐴𝐵𝐸𝑃
𝐸𝐶𝑃𝐵 = (8)
𝑅𝑃𝐵
with:
• TECPB is Total Energy Consumption Per Block (TWh)
• ABEP is Average Bitcoin Electricity Price ($/kWh)
• RPB is Reward Per Block (in bitcoin (BTC))
There are 2016 blocks in a difficulty recalculation period. Therefore,
Tot. En. Con. Betw. Dif. Recal.
𝑇𝐸𝐶𝑃𝐵 = (TWh) (9)
2016
Total Energy Consumption Between Difficulty Recalculation (TECBDR) is calculated as
𝑃 ∗ 𝐻𝐵𝐷𝑅 𝑁𝐻 ∗ 𝐸𝑜𝐻 ∗ 𝐻𝐵𝐷𝑅
𝑇𝐸𝐶𝐵𝐷𝑅 = = (10)
106 1018
where HBDR is Hours Between Difficulty Recalculation (h).
Let us define the Difficulty Recalculation Block (DRBx) and Next Difficulty Recalculation Block
(DRBx+2016), Timestamp of Difficulty Recalculation Block (TDRBx), and Timestamp of Next Difficulty
Recalculation Block (TDRBx+2016), then,
Starting Block Phase Reward Per Block BTC from Previous Round Mined BTC Cumulative BTC Increase in Total Percentage of Total Estimated Time of Last Block
0 1 50.00 0.00 10,500,000.00 10,500,000.00 - 50.00% 3 January 2009
210,000 2 25.00 10,500,000.00 5,250,000.00 15,750,000.00 50.00% 75.00% 28 November 2012
420,000 3 12.50 15,750,000.00 2,625,000.00 18,375,000.00 16.67% 87.50% 9 July 2016
630,000 4 6.25 18,375,000.00 1,312,500.00 19,687,500.00 7.14% 93.75% 2020
840,000 5 3.13 19,687,500.00 656,250.00 20,343,750.00 3.33% 96.88% 2024
1,050,000 6 1.56 20,343,750.00 328,125.00 20,671,875.00 1.61% 98.44% 2028
1,260,000 7 0.78 20,671,875.00 164,062.50 20,835,937.50 0.79% 99.22% 2032
1,470,000 8 0.39 20,835,937.50 82,031.25 20,917,968.75 0.39% 99.61% 2036
1,680,000 9 0.20 20,917,968.75 41,015.63 20,958,984.38 0.20% 99.80% 2040
1,890,000 10 0.10 20,958,984.38 20,507.81 20,979,492.19 0.10% 99.90% 2044
2,100,000 11 0.05 20,979,492.19 10,253.91 20,989,746.09 0.05% 99.95% 2048
2,310,000 12 0.02 20,989,746.09 5126.95 20,994,873.05 0.02% 99.98% 2052
2,520,000 13 0.01 20,994,873.05 2563.48 20,997,436.52 0.01% 99.99% 2056
2,730,000 14 0.01 20,997,436.52 1281.74 20,998,718.26 0.01% 99.99% 2060
2,940,000 15 0.00 20,998,718.26 640.87 20,999,359.13 0.00% 100.00% 2064
3,150,000 16 0.00 20,999,359.13 320.43 20,999,679.56 0.00% 100.00% 2068
3,360,000 17 0.00 20,999,679.56 160.22 20,999,839.77 0.00% 100.00% 2072
3,570,000 18 0.00 20,999,839.77 80.11 20,999,919.88 0.00% 100.00% 2076
3,780,000 19 0.00 20,999,919.88 40.05 20,999,959.93 0.00% 100.00% 2080
3,990,000 20 0.00 20,999,959.93 20.03 20,999,979.96 0.00% 100.00% 2084
4,200,000 21 0.00 20,999,979.96 10.01 20,999,989.97 0.00% 100.00% 2088
4,410,000 22 0.00 20,999,989.97 5.01 20,999,994.98 0.00% 100.00% 2092
4,620,000 23 0.00 20,999,994.98 2.50 20,999,997.48 0.00% 100.00% 2096
4,830,000 24 0.00 20,999,997.48 1.25 20,999,998.73 0.00% 100.00% 2100
5,040,000 25 0.00 20,999,998.73 0.63 20,999,999.36 0.00% 100.00% 2104
5,250,000 26 0.00 20,999,999.36 0.31 20,999,999.67 0.00% 100.00% 2108
5,460,000 27 0.00 20,999,999.67 0.16 20,999,999.83 0.00% 100.00% 2112
5,670,000 28 0.00 20,999,999.83 0.08 20,999,999.91 0.00% 100.00% 2116
5,880,000 29 0.00 20,999,999.91 0.04 20,999,999.94 0.00% 100.00% 2120
6,090,000 30 0.00 20,999,999.94 0.02 20,999,999.96 0.00% 100.00% 2124
6,300,000 31 0.00 20,999,999.96 0.01 20,999,999.97 0.00% 100.00% 2128
6,510,000 32 0.00 20,999,999.97 0.00 20,999,999.97 0.00% 100.00% 2132
6,720,000 33 0.00 20,999,999.97 0.00 20,999,999.98 0.00% 100.00% 2136
6,930,000 34 0.00 20,999,999.98 0.00 20,999,999.98 0.00% 100.00% 2140
4. Results
There are questions about for how long BTC will be profitable for the miners. When we
calculated the term Maximum, we stressed that the cost of BTC should not be higher than the price
of BTC. Nonetheless, due to the complexity of the analysis, we limited ourselves with the BTC mining
locations from 1 June to 4 June 2018. To see if this sample was representative of the whole historical
data, we plotted Figure 2 to see the comparison between Maximum Cost of BTC (the cost of bitcoin
mining under maximum power demand) and the price of BTC.
25,000
20,000
15,000
Cost (USD)
10,000
5,000
Date
From Figure 2, we see that the cost per BTC is under the BTC price at all times. Therefore, we
can claim that the Maximum should be the theoretical upper boundary of BTC mining.
After verifying our Maximum term, we calculated the yearly minimum and maximum energy
consumption between difficulty recalculations of all devices available on the market. Figure 3
summarizes the energy consumption estimations from 2009 onwards.
140.00
120.00
100.00
Energy (TWh)
80.00
60.00
40.00
20.00
0.00
01/01/2009
01/05/2009
01/09/2009
01/01/2010
01/05/2010
01/09/2010
01/01/2011
01/05/2011
01/09/2011
01/01/2012
01/05/2012
01/09/2012
01/01/2013
01/05/2013
01/09/2013
01/01/2014
01/05/2014
01/09/2014
01/01/2015
01/05/2015
01/09/2015
01/01/2016
01/05/2016
01/09/2016
01/01/2017
01/05/2017
01/09/2017
01/01/2018
01/05/2018
Date
Yearly Energy Consumption Between Diff. Recalc. Minimum Of All Devices (TWh/year)
Yearly Energy Consumption Between Diff. Recalc. Maximum (TWh/year)
14.00
12.00
Power (GW)
10.00
8.00
6.00
4.00
2.00
0.00
01/01/2009
01/05/2009
01/09/2009
01/01/2010
01/05/2010
01/09/2010
01/01/2011
01/05/2011
01/09/2011
01/01/2012
01/05/2012
01/09/2012
01/01/2013
01/05/2013
01/09/2013
01/01/2014
01/05/2014
01/09/2014
01/01/2015
01/05/2015
01/09/2015
01/01/2016
01/05/2016
01/09/2016
01/01/2017
01/05/2017
01/09/2017
01/01/2018
01/05/2018
Date
To illustrate how hardware choice and hence the efficiency of the hardware is important, we
plotted the minimum energy consumption of bitcoin mining per each manufacturer. Figure 5 shows
the minimum energy consumption of bitcoin mining per CPU, GPU, FPGA, and ASIC.
12,000.00
10,000.00
8,000.00
Energy (TWh)
6,000.00
4,000.00
2,000.00
0.00
Date
CPU Minimum (TWh) GPU Minimum (TWh) FPGA Minimum (TWh) ASIC Minimum (TWh)
Figure 5. CPU, GPU, FPGA, and ASIC minimum energy consumption between difficulty
recalculation.
The world’s global electricity demand is around 23,000 TWh per year [21]. If all miners kept
using CPU hardware, bitcoin mining would consume energy at around 11,000 TWh per year. As
more efficient devices come to market, the mining process will become less energy consuming.
5. Discussion and Conclusions
Energy consumption of bitcoin mining is a very controversial topic. There are various
estimations. However, these estimations vary considerably from study to study. This paper makes
use of 160 GB of blockchain data and data from 269 different hardware models (CPU, GPU, FPGA,
and ASIC) that are used for the mining process. We defined two metrics to measure the energy
consumption. First is the minimum energy consumption. This metric simply picks the most efficient
hardware in use during the recalculation process. However, as we pointed out earlier, this is the
theoretical minimum boundary of the consumption. It is unlikely that the all miners will get rid of
their existing hardware and buy and start using more efficient hardware the moment it is introduced
in the market. The second metric is the profitable maximum. The idea is to measure the cost of
electricity and then pick up the worst performing hardware in the market. However, the total cost
should be under the price of bitcoin so that the miners will still be able to make a profit. This level
will be the theoretical higher consumption boundary since it is not sustainable to continue mining if
the operational costs of mining is higher than the price of the bitcoin.
The choice of hardware is crucial in the energy consumption. Figure 5 clearly shows that if
miners kept using CPU only, by the year 2018 the minimum energy consumption would be higher
than the total energy consumption of the United States and China combined [21]. One of the key
findings of this paper is that the historical peak of power consumption of bitcoin mining took place
during the bi-weekly period commencing on 18 December 2017 with a demand between 1.3 and 14.8
GW. This maximum demand estimation is between the installed capacities of Finland (~16 GW) and
Denmark (~14 GW) [21]. During same period, the historical peak energy consumption between
difficulty recalculation was about 129.20 TWh per year. Energy consumption is directly affected by
the bitcoin prices as well. With falling bitcoin prices, the peak power demand drops as well. In the
first half of 2018, the estimated minimum power demand was between 1.34 and 2.80 GW whilst the
maximum demand was between 5.14 and 13.82 GW. During June 2018, yearly energy consumption
was between 15.47 (minimum) and 50.24 TWh (maximum).
It is almost impossible to make a precise estimation of the future energy consumption of bitcoin
mining simply due to two reasons. Firstly, the bitcoin prices directly affect mining and hence energy
consumption. Especially since 2017, the prices have fluctuated massively in the market, and it is hard
to estimate the future value of bitcoin. Secondly, hardware efficiency is another major factor. As many
as 269 different hardware models could have been used in mining. Since we scanned all available
hardware in the market, as of June 2018, we claim the maximum and minimum estimations of this
paper are the theoretical boundaries of the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining. However, on a
regular basis, we see a more efficient device introduced in the market almost each month. It is hard
to predict the future efficiencies of the devices that manufacturers will introduce. Finally, one more
crucial highlight is that by the year 2028, 98.44% of all bitcoins will be produced. The discussion about
the energy consumption of bitcoin mining is likely to persist until then.
Author Contributions: S.K. prepared the background for the research content and built the energy consumption
and power demand methodology. M.Ö. compiled and processed the blockchain data.
Acknowledgments: The authors would like to acknowledge M.G. Pollitt from Energy Policy Research Group,
University of Cambridge for his contribution in general guidance for this research work.
References
1. Nakamoto, S. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System; 2008.
2. O’Dwyer, K.J.; Malone, D. Bitcoin mining and its energy footprint. In Proceedings of the Irish Signals &
Systems Conference 2014 and 2014 China–Ireland International Conference on Information and
Communications Technologies (ISSC 2014/CIICT 2014), IET, Limerick, Ireland, 26–27 June 2013; pp. 280–
285.
3. McCook, H. An Order-of-Magnitude Estimate of the Relative Sustainability of the Bitcoin Network 2015.
Available online:
https://bitcoin.fr/public/divers/docs/Estimation_de_la_durabilite_et_du_cout_du_reseau_Bitcoin.pdf
(accessed on 2 October 2018).
4. Hayes, A.S. Cryptocurrency value formation: An empirical study leading to a cost of production model for
valuing bitcoin. Telemat. Inform. 2017, 34, 1308–1321.
5. The Economist. The Magic of Mining 2015. Available online:
https://www.economist.com/business/2015/01/08/the-magic-of-mining (accessed on 2 October 2018).
6. Vranken, H. Sustainability of bitcoin and blockchains. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 2017, 28, 1–9.
7. Gauer, M. Bitcoin Miners True Energy Consumption 2017. Available online:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322118225_Bitcoin_miners_true_energy_consumption
(accessed on 2 October 2018).
8. de Vries, A. Bitcoin’s Growing Energy Problem. Joule 2018, 2, 801–805.
9. Digiconomist. Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index 2018. Available online: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-
energy-consumption (accessed on 2 October 2018).
10. Bevand, M. Electricity Consumption of Bitcoin: A Market-Based and Technical Analysis 2018. Available
online: http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption/ (accessed on 2 October 2018).
11. Krause, M.J.; Tolaymat, T. Quantification of energy and carbon costs for mining cryptocurrencies. Nat.
Sustain. 2018, 1, 711–718.
12. Blockchain Size | Bitcoin.com Charts 2018. Available online: https://charts.bitcoin.com/chart/blockchain-
size (accessed on 24 June 2018).
13. Home-UserBenchmark (n.d.). Available online: http://www.userbenchmark.com/ (accessed on 24 June
2018).
14. PassMark Software—PC Benchmark and Test Software (n.d.). Available online:
https://www.passmark.com/index.html (accessed on 24 June 2018)
15. Coindesk. He Paid How Much?! CoinDesk Releases ‘Bitcoin Pizza Day’ Price Tracker 2018. Available
online: https://www.coindesk.com/he-paid-how-much-coindesk-releases-bitcoin-pizza-day-pricetracker/
(accessed on 2 October 2018).
16. Mt.Gox. BTCHARTS-MTGOXUSD. Available online:
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/BCHARTS/MTGOXUSD.csv (accessed on 2 October 2018).
17. Bitstamp (n.d.). Available online: https://www.bitstamp.net/ (accessed on 2 October 2018).
18. Blockchaininfo. Hashrate Distribution 2018. Available online: https://www.blockchain.com/pools
(accessed on 2 October 2018).
19. Statista (n.d.). Electricity Prices Around the World 2017. Available online:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/ (accessed on 24 June
2018).
20. OVO Energy (n.d.). Average Electricity Prices Around the World: $/kWh. Available online:
https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/average-electricity-prices-kwh.html (accessed on 24
June 2018).
21. Enerdata. 2017. Global Energy Statistical Yearbook 2018. Available online:
https://yearbook.enerdata.net/electricity/electricity-domestic-consumption-data.html (accessed on 2
October 2018).