Global Bitcoin mining now requires 7 nuclear power plants to provide electricity consumption

The computing power (hash rate) of the SHA256 algorithm used to secure the Bitcoin network has grown significantly over the past few years, with Bitcoin's total network computing power reaching an all-time high in 2020. In addition, the multi-gigawatt electricity consumption that powers the global Bitcoin mining industry is equivalent to the energy supply level of seven nuclear power plants.

Data from Tokeninsight's 2020 Mining Research Report and the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) show that Bitcoin miners will pay an average of $0.03 to $0.05 per kilowatt-hour this year. At the end of March 2020, the cost of mining a single Bitcoin (BTC) worldwide was approximately $7,577.51. Based on the current exchange rate, miners' average net profit from mining on Monday, August 24, was approximately $4,184 per Bitcoin.

Another estimate from Bitooda’s July 2020 mining industry report suggests that the Bitcoin network’s total hash rate could exceed 260 exahashes per second over the next year and a half.

“According to our assessment, within the next 12-14 months, the Bitcoin hashrate will exceed 260EH/s. This is due to a modest increase in available power capacity from 9.6GW to 10.6GW, and an upgrade cycle that will replace older generation S9 miners with newer S17 and next generation S19 miners.

The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) shows that the total power consumption of miners running the Bitcoin network is 7.46 gigawatts (GW), while an average-sized nuclear power plant will produce about 1GW of electricity in 2020. The CBECI points out that the 7.46 GW of electricity used to run the Bitcoin network is approximately equal to 63.32 TWh or terawatt hours. The amount of electricity consumed by Bitcoin miners is equal to more than seven nuclear power plants or 21.8 million photovoltaic (PV) solar panels.

The Bitcoin network is as powerful as 9.1 million horsepower, or 14,000 Corvette Z06s, and 2,884 utility-scale wind turbines.

More than a decade ago, Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, predicted the massive increase in energy required to power today’s network.

“Initially, most users will be able to run a network node on a personal computer,” Satoshi wrote on November 2, 2008. “However, as the network grows beyond a certain level, large operations with dedicated mining hardware servers will become more and more numerous. A mining farm will only need one node on the network, and the rest of the LAN is connected to that node.”