The Bitcoin virtual currency has been on a wild ride this year. It’s not only the price of this virtual currency that’s surging, it’s the power requirement as well. According to a new report, Bitcoin mining at this stage requires more power than over 20 European countries. The findings have been reported by UK-based researchers who looked into the total volume of electricity that’s required for mining Bitcoin.
There isn’t any physical mine where computers are being used to excavate the currency from. Bitcoin mining refers to the computational process that enables transactions on the blockchain to keep moving. The amount of power required to make that happen is more than what’s required by 20 countries in Europe.
There are only three countries on the entire continent of Africa that currently consume more electricity than Bitcoin mining – Egypt, South Africa, and Algeria.
The current estimated annual electricity consumption for Bitcoin mining is around 29.05 TWh, that’s equivalent to 0.13 percent of the world’s overall electricity requirements.
It’s also mentioned in the research that the power consumption for Bitcoin mining has increased nearly 30 percent in the last month alone. If the electricity requirements continue to increase at this rate, the mining consumption globally will best the United Kindom’s entire electric supply by October 2019.
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