How Much Power Does A Bitcoin Miner Use

How much power does it take to mine a bitcoin? In this assessment we find that an boilerplate of
143,000 kWh of energy is required to produce one bitcoin. Our method to discover the amount of energy information technology takes to mine a bitcoin uses information from relevant ASIC models, network size, and electric current miner profitability.

We as well summate the
bitcoin production rate
and use information technology to find how much energy the entire network consumes. We detect that
Bitcoin’s network uses an boilerplate of 128,248 MWh, or 128 GWh of electricity per day in order to produce 900 bitcoin. Simply this estimate is always changing alongside hash rate size and other factors.

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Nosotros sign-off with a note on Bitcoin’s future network growth and free energy need… Find out why nosotros believe Bitcoin is scapegoated for its energy consumption. Further, observe out why we believe
hash rate growth may be slowing and is
non
linear.

ASIC Free energy Consumption per Bitcoin

The best ASIC miner on the market is currently Bitmain’s Antminer S19 Pro 110 terahash per second (Thursday/southward). This model houses a couple hundred TSMC 7nm microprocessor fries. It consumes 3250 watts (W) power per hour with an efficiency of 29.5 W/TH. Only,
one machine alone takes about three years to produce i bitcoin.

Thus to discover how much power it takes to mine a bitcoin, we demand to consider how much energy the entire network uses rather than but one unit of measurement. Permit’south apply a similar method to the ane nosotros used in our investigation of ‘how much it costs to mine a bitcoin‘ to reach this.

How much ability does information technology accept to mine a bitcoin with S19 Pros?

According to mining pool data
it takes about 122,000 Thursday/s over twenty-four hours to create ~one bitcoin at today’s BTC price, network size, and difficulty level.

And, by simple division we detect out that 122,000 Th/s is equivalent to 1,109 S19 Pros at 110 Thursday/s each. So to detect out how much energy these 1,109 ASICs require, we multiply the amount of machines past their kilowatt (kW) specification over one solar day of mining.

        ane,109 S19s * 3.25 kW * 24 hours =
          86,509 kilowatt hours (kWh)
        
      

Hence,
information technology requires 86,509 kWh to produce one bitcoin
with S19 Pros. This is the aforementioned equally 86.5 megawatt-60 minutes (MWh) or 0.0865 gigawatt-hour (GWh).
Read more about electricity unit conversions here.

But Bitcoin’south network is not but made up of S19 Pros, lesser efficient machines be. Appropriately, the actual power demand to produce i bitcoin is slightly higher than this commencement prediction. Allow’s effort other bitcoin miner models which represent the entire network population.

How much power does information technology take to mine a bitcoin per ASIC model?

To go a better thought of how much energy is expended per bitcoin, we can brand a representation of the hash rate based on ASIC models and manufacturer’southward market place shares. To achieve this we allocate a number of ASIC models in proportion to each manufacturer’s estimated marketplace share. See beneath.

Now, let’s gather some info on individual bitcoin miner models.

Below nosotros bear witness the model proper noun, terahash, kilowatt, and efficiency specifications for bitcoin mining’s most popular hardware. We as well find the number of ASICs required to hash 122,000 Th/s which is equal to one BTC. Lastly, we accept the product of the amount of ASICs to mine one BTC and the kW spec over 24 hours. This provides the
estimated kWh per BTC
for each miner type.

We find that
with an average network efficiency of 48.7 Due west/TH it takes about 142,498 kWh to produce a bitcoin.
This is equivalent to 142 MWh, or 0.142 GWh. Side by side we will see how much energy the network uses per day.

Limitations

Information technology is of import to sympathize that Bitcoin’s variables are volatile. For example, the hash rate was 185 EH/southward earlier the bitcoin mining bans, which is +35% more than today. So this means that
in Apr the network used over a third more electricity to create a bitcoin every bit it did in August of 2021.

Furthermore, information technology is hard to know exactly how many of each ASIC model is currently running, or the accurate market place share of manufacturers. So these are assumptions.

But thank you to improvements in the energy profiles of bitcoin miners alongside microprocessor chip advancements,
hardware uses less energy per terahash to produce bitcoin over fourth dimension. Nevertheless manufacturing bottlenecks limit the release of new machines, keeping older generation hardware on the network.

Bitcoin Production Rate

If we want to work out how much energy the unabridged Bitcoin network consumes each twenty-four hour period, we need to do some groundwork. First we must notice out the current
rate of bitcoin production.

Blockchain Dynamics

Let’south do a quick review of
how the Bitcoin blockchain works. Bitcoin nodes receive and organize awaiting transactions from bitcoin users in the mempool. Transactions awaiting confirmation in the mempool are sorted past priority based on the highest-to-lowest fee set per transaction. So, transactions with very little fees may sit idle in the mempool for some time, whereas transactions with loftier fees are verified speedily.

When proof-of-piece of work (PoW) miners observe a cake, a number of transactions are added into that block. The amount of transactions in each cake is controlled by the maximum byte-size of the cake. When the block is filled with awaiting transactions, Pw miners verify and timestamp that block.

Once the block is stamped it is added onto the blockchain and appears in the public ledger. Each block added onto the blockchain secures the previous blocks and serves as a ‘confirmation’. For example, most vendors and exchanges only have a BTC payment in one case half-dozen confirmations accept been completed, aka six additional blocks following a verified transaction are added to the blockchain. Therefore, the more than confirmations, the more than secure a transaction is.

Block Discovery Step and Reward

The cake pace is the rate which PoW miners observe new blocks through a hashing puzzle. The amount of time it takes PoW miners to find a block adjusts automatically over time by the difficulty level. The target charge per unit of block discovery is every 10 minutes. Thus, the average
block stride is 1 block per x minutes. This is
equivalent to six blocks per hr, or 144 blocks a 24-hour interval.

When miners discover a block they are gifted a block advantage which is also the issuance of new bitcoin. The block reward is currently 6.25 bitcoin per cake. So,
the charge per unit of coin issuance is 6.25 bitcoin every ten minutes.

Although, keep in mind that the block reward diminishes over fourth dimension. In the yr 2024 the block reward volition shrink from 6.25 to 3.125 bitcoin in what is known every bit a halving consequence. Halvings occur every four years,
read more about miner trends here.

Hourly, Daily, and Yearly Bitcoin Production

Using the variables described to a higher place, we find that
the rate of bitcoin production is 37.5 BTC per hour for the adjacent three years
(until the 2024 halving). This means effectually 900 bitcoin are produced per day, and 328,500 are created per year. See our calculations below.

        6.25 bitcoin advantage * half-dozen blocks per hr =
          37.5 BTC per hour
          
          37.5 bitcoin hourly * 24 hours =
          900 BTC per day
          
          900 bitcoin daily * 365 days =
          328,500 BTC per year
        
      

Extreme Circumstances

Bitcoin’s self-auditing difficulty adjustment always reorientates the block pace to 6 per hour. This occurs every 2016 blocks, or about every 2 weeks. This machinery keeps the system working similar clockwork without mediation. It besides incentivizes miners to use the almost energy efficient machines to keep ahead of their competition. As hash rate grows, bitcoin mining difficulty becomes harder.

However, sudden drops in hash rate between difficulty epochs can cause the cake pace to lag, resulting in a temporary decrease in coin production. Likewise, when the hash rate grows between difficulty epochs because more miners join the network, the block pace may temporarily speed up. And then more bitcoin are produced per hour. Regardless, the cake pace always averages itself to 6 per 60 minutes without neglect.

Bitcoin’due south Total Energy Consumption Charge per unit

Next nosotros notice out how much power the network uses daily. To do this we take the production of the
average amount of kWh
it takes to mine a bitcoin, and the
rate of bitcoin product.

From our previous calculations we know that at an average efficiency of 48.seven it takes around 142,498 kWh to produce ane bitcoin. This is equivalent to 142 MWh or 0.142 GWh.

To get the daily amount of energy the network uses, we have the kWh to mine i bitcoin times the daily production rate of 900 coins. Thus,
Bitcoin’south network currently consumes 128,248,199 kWh, or 128,248 MWh, or 128 GWh per mean solar day.

How Many Bitcoin can a Power Plant Produce?

To put this into perspective a typical nuclear power institute produces 1000 MW electricity. This equals 24,000 MWh per 24-hour interval, or 24 GWh. Whereas a large-scale free energy provider similar the Three Gorges Dam in China spits out a maximum capacity of 22.5 GW. This amounts to 540,000 MWh per twenty-four hour period, or 540 GWh.

So, in theory,
a typical ability plant could mint up to 171 bitcoin per a day, and 3 Gorges Dam could create iv times the maximum of 900 bitcoin per mean solar day. See how we did this below.

        24 GWh
            smaller
          power plant per day / 0.14 GWh per BTC =
          171 BTC per day
          540 GWh
          larger power plant per mean solar day / 0.14 GWh per BTC =
          3,857 BTC per day
        
      

Today the world has effectually 62,500 power plants. When y'all consider that
one large power plant could run the entire Bitcoin network four times over, Bitcoin’south energy consumption seems less threatening.

Furthermore, the world produces over 460 TWh of energy per twenty-four hour period, or 460,000 GWh. Thus,
Bitcoin uses 0.03% of the world’due south energy per day. We also know that much of the energy bitcoin miners use is stranded, or otherwise wasted energy. And so in the big scheme of things, how much power it takes to mine a bitcoin is negligible.

Haters Gonna Hate

Why is Bitcoin scapegoated for its free energy consumption?

Perhaps because financial institutions and world leaders fearfulness losing their
Cantillon privileges. Richard Cantillon’s theory from the 1700s states that the beneficiaries of newly printed money are the wealthy. Eventually money trickles downs to the populace, but working people pay a higher price. This creates inflation and an uneven distribution of purchasing power.

Today things are more extreme than what Cantillon observed. Hedge funds, private equity, and bankers do good immensely from the ‘brrrrrrr‘ of coin printers. Rich rent-seekers live off of the involvement paid by lower lying citizens on the money-chain, without bringing whatever real benefit to society. Bitcoin fixes this past limiting the money supply to 21 1000000, and not favoring a certain social class.

Merely, Bitcoin miners have access to the newly printed coin?

Yes, merely this money is non all profit, miners must use their earnings to stay competitive. This is because the distribution of coins is in the form of miner rewards which is based on game theory. Game theory does not intendance almost your social-class privileges.

Additionally, Bitcoin allows a greater amount of privacy than electric current financial institutions. Whereas Large Brother must always know what the inferior populace is doing in club to control them.

Summary

In conclusion,
the amount of energy it takes to mine a bitcoin is estimated to be
between 86,000 – 286,000 kWh
. And Bitcoin’due south network consumes around 128 GWh a day in order to produce 900 bitcoin. Merely remember that variables similar hash rate, BTC price, and miner earnings are dynamic which bear on results.

The beauty of Bitcoin’s pattern is that it has the ability to cocky-regulate to ensure its block pace stays constant and miner’south earnings are competitive.
Simply will the network grow forever as the BTC price increases and the hashing capabilities of ASICs advance?

No, network growth has a express capacity.

Network Growth vs Logistics Growth Model

Several people cite that Bitcoin’s network will grow linearly year-on-yr based on historical data. However, due to negative feedbacks and exogenous limitations
this is non the case.
Bitcoin trends are
nonlinear
because it is a circuitous system.

In fact, despite continuing BTC cost increases miner profitability diminishes over time thanks to negative feedbacks. See in green beneath.

Also, the amount of
energy available to bitcoin miners is scare.
This caps network growth. For illustration, we consider the
total electricity bachelor
to bitcoin miners every bit the ‘carrying capacity‘ in a logistics growth model below. Past definition, the carrying capacity in a biological species model is the total corporeality of habitat resource similar food and shelter available to sustain a limited population size. Similarly, bitcoin miners crave electricity to sustain their population size.

Farther, despite microchip advances which lower ASIC efficiency profiles and increase profit margins,
the overall cost and energy required to mine a bitcoin will rise over time. This is because of a combination of circumstances which can be termed every bit the ‘limits to growth‘ of the network size.

Limits to growth
include network difficulty – as more miners join the network the difficulty increases which makes it harder to mine a bitcoin. This reduces a miner’s turn a profit and increases the cost to mine a bitcoin. Additionally, electricity tariffs volition rising over time as fossil-fuels are phased out and the dollar’s value decreases with inflation. Also, regulations add actress fees. For example, from January 2022 Kazakhstan will innovate a miner tariff per kWh, and in Canada bitcoin miners who don’t use clean energy must pay for their carbon footprint. Lastly, diminishing miner rewards due to halvings will cause the base of operations production cost of a bitcoin to rise every four years.
Although, BTC toll increases should compensate in part for rising production costs.

Therefore, we believe that Bitcoin’southward network is entering the
slowed growth
stage shown in the logistics growth model above.
In the future nosotros believe that
the network size may meridian and so accomplish a
relative equilibrium
or
diminished growth
. Of class, we could be wrong. What do yous think? Share your thoughts.