Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were designed to be efficient, low-friction alternatives to traditional financial systems. But it seems their creators maybe didn’t think too hard about their sustainability. An analysis published in the journal Joule this week predicts the Bitcoin network could be using 7.67 gigawatts of electricity by the end of the year. That’s half a percent of the world’s electricity and the same amount used by the whole of Austria.
The problem comes from the way Bitcoin verifies transactions. To avoid duplicate spending of coins, members of the network compete in tricky computational challenges for the right to create the next block of transactions in the chain in return for a reward—currently 12.5 bitcoins (roughly $10,000).
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