Bitcoin Mining Using Nearly 0.5 Percent of the World’s Energy. There have been concerns in recent time over how the bitcoin is being mined. As the bitcoin mining process becomes more complicated with fewer rewards coming out of mined blocks, there becomes a need for people to use more energy to get their coins mined with the industry producing enough energy to power all of the country of Ireland. Even then, there is no guarantee a miner will get the proof of stake needed for collecting the rewards.
The greatest concern surrounding the bitcoin mining process is that the amount of energy being used for it is increasing. A report from prominent bitcoin analyst Alex de Vries was released on Cell.com stating that the bitcoin mining efforts around the world have become extensive enough to where close to 0.5 percent of the world’s energy usage is being used for bitcoin mining.
The report is based on an analysis of data points. These points are the bitcoin-mining computers that have been operating within the year. The amount of energy consumption and the sizes of the mining farms working were reviewed to come up with a calculation of the bitcoin network operating at 2.55 gigawatts of power. This is about the same amount of energy used through Ireland.
The de Vries report states that based on the growth of the mining market, the number may go up to around 7.67 gigawatts before the year ends. This would be close to the amount of energy used in Austria according to general reports.
The greatest concern in de Vries’ report is that the mining process is becoming increasingly expensive as added energy is being used to produce coins. This could make it to where the cost to produce the bitcoin could be higher than the value of the bitcoin. Unless the bitcoin’s value dramatically rises, there is a chance that the mining industry will become less savory as the expense involved become too prohibitive.
However, the mining process continues to be appealing for people based on how well the reward is laid out. When a mining group manages to produce a new block with a proof of stake, 12.5 bitcoins are provided to that group. This is good for close to $100,000 in value when the current value of the bitcoin is considered. But the most powerful systems that use more energy would be more likely to get this due to the need to resolve extensive equations to get the currency mined accordingly.
The cost of bitcoin mining is expected to increase as the complexity of getting the bitcoin produced increases. But what is most concerning is that in the future, the reward that will come from a bitcoin block will decline to 6.25 coins per block. This dramatically reduces the reward that the person will get. There is anticipation that the increased difficulty might result in the currency being more valuable for mining purposes because of how tough it is to find and get new coins, but there are no guarantees that the value will certainly increase thanks to this change.
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