According to Bloomberg, the Bitcoin (BTC) network has already consumed more energy this year than in all of 2020. The financial news agency reported on September 13:
The amount of energy used to mine Bitcoin this year has already surpassed 2020’s level, BloombergNEF estimates https://t.co/kqNNdHE21t through @crypto
— Bloomberg Crypto (@crypto) September 13, 2021
Bloomberg reports that the Bitcoin network consumed 67 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy in 2020 and that the cryptocurrency has already passed it this year. The media company estimates that Bitcoin will have consumed as much as 91 TWh by the end of 2021 this year.
That is even despite the crash in China early this summer. In June, the Chinese government cracked down on the mining industry and several provinces have completely banned it. It caused the so-called hash rate, or computing power, plummeted.
The Bitcoin hash rate was still around 190 . in mid-May exahashes per second (EH/s) and reached only about 70 EH/s at the end of June, a decrease of more than 60%. It has since recovered to around 140 EH/s, a 100% increase from its low.
Data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBEBI) show that the energy consumption then dropped from 132 TWh to 62 TWH, but indicates, in contrast to the Bloomberg figures, that it already amounts to 97 TWh. In comparison, the whole of the Netherlands consumes about 110 TWh per year. It should be borne in mind that all these figures, for both consumption and hash rate, are estimates.
Bitcoin’s power consumption has been criticized this year when suddenly Elon Musk said Tesla will no longer accept bitcoin payments. Shortly after, the Bitcoin Mining Council was founded, a group of North American miners who want to encourage more transparency about this.
Musk said last summer that Tesla would accept BTC payments again as soon as more than 50% of bitcoin mining is done using green energy. In July, the council released a report estimating this figure at 56%, but we haven’t heard from Musk since. The Chinese miner exodus is also expected to further spur the switch to green energy.