Concerns about energy consumption and demand for electricity halted the mining of cryptocurrencies in Iran at the end of May. This doesn’t affect any online casino that accepts crypto as payment though, but in response to China’s promise to be carbon neutral by 2060, many coal-fired power plants of the country which cover 57% of its energy consumption have been shut down and energy-intensive companies such as bitcoin miners in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia have been ordered to stop operations. When China kicked bitcoin miners out of the market this spring, the share of bitcoins mined with renewable energy fell as miners moved to countries with more fossil fuel-dependent energy networks, said Pete Howson, a bitcoin expert and senior lecturer in international development at Northumbria University in the UK.
Key takeaways Bitcoin and other proven cryptocurrencies require large amounts of energy for the calculation required for mining. According to the latest estimates, the Bitcoin network consumes as much energy as Argentina in a year. Energy consumption and e-waste are a problem for all cryptocurrencies, but especially for Bitcoin, which requires proof of work.
Mining consumes a lot of computing power, as you can imagine, and miners need to keep energy costs low in order to remain profitable, which means they always seek for the cheapest option. The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index estimates that the cryptocurrency consumes more energy than the whole nations of Sweden and Malaysia. While it is true that bitcoin mining consumes an enormous amount of energy, miners need the cheapest source of energy they can find.
No matter whether one is for or against cryptocurrencies, there is little doubt that Bitcoin and other proof of work blockchains consume an enormous amount of energy. That being said, cryptocurrencies are much more energy efficient than Bitcoin.
Supporters play down the energy consumption of cryptocurrencies, claiming that mining tends to focus on areas with surpluses of renewable energy. A study by ARK Invest suggests that cryptocurrency mining drives investments in renewable energy and produces more energy than is available on the grid. Despite popular opposition and the argument that Bitcoin cannot realistically cooperate with renewable resources, the epicenter of coin mining in China uses a significant amount of coal to generate energy — one of the reasons why Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk changed his mind and stopped accepting Bitcoin in the company.
In recent weeks, attention in the cryptocurrency market has focused on Bitcoin’s energy consumption and its dependence on mining fossil fuels to secure its blockchain operations. However on platforms such as the best real money online casino sites, the currency would be exchanging hands as something like the keys or records contained in your wallet, so there’s not much of a concern on that end. With the obvious interest in bitcoin and Bitcoin mining comes a lot of research related to the energy the cryptocurrency will consume in a few years, assuming the trend continues.
According to a 2018 benchmarking study by Cambridge Global Cryptoassets, 39% of mining is hydroelectric, despite attempts to make bitcoin mining greener. Economist Alex de Vries asserts that the use of clean energy will not contribute to the environmental sustainability of Bitcoins, because hydropower can only sustain bitcoin mining during the rainy season, and hydropower cannot meet years of demand when bitcoin mining is running around the clock.
