Bitcoin Sustainability Report June 2018

Digiconomist is committed to promoting (the development of) sustainable blockchain technology. Blockchain protocols such as Bitcoin currently run on the energy-slurping proof-of-work algorithm (creating these proofs of work is better known as “mining”). The Bitcoin Energy Consumption index is a key tool that was created to provide insight into this energy consumption amount, and raise awareness on the unsustainability of the proof-of-work algorithm. The sustainability report uses historical data from the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index to summarize the sustainability progress and performance of the Bitcoin protocol over the past month.

June Highlights

Due to the ongoing decrease in revenues available to miners Bitcoin’s energy consumption has finally stabilised in June. The highlights of the past month are as follows:

  • Mining revenues decreased by a little over 20 percent.
  • Mining revenue from transaction fees decreased by 18 percent.
  • The average fee per single transaction was $1.20.
  • The total network power consumption increased by almost 6 percent.
  • The average energy consumption per transaction was up by around 8 percent, and amounts to 1,009 KWh per unique transaction (enough to power 1 U.S. household for more than 34 days).

The full report is featured below:

Description Value Monthly change Trend
Mining Revenue
Average Bitcoin Price $6,790 -19.84%
Average Price Volatility 42.92% -13.19%
Mining Revenue from Fees $6,920,160 -18.23%
Mining Revenue from Blocks Mined $440,021,629 -20.64%
Total Mining Revenue $446,941,789 -20.60%
Mining Costs
Total Costs of Mining $291,392,410 5.88%
Percentage of Total Revenue 65.20% 33.35%
Total KWh Consumed 5,827,848,206 5.88%
Network Statistics
Total Transactions Processed 5,773,299 -2.36%
Average KWh Consumed per TX 1,009 8.38%
Average Fee per Transaction $1.20 -16.08%
Energy cost per TX (at 5 cents per KWh) $50.45 8.38%
Average Network Hashrate (GH/s) 41,977,650,918 23.85%
Average Network Effciency (J/GH) 0.19 -11.68%
Bounds
Economic Maximum KWh Consumed 8,938,835,790 -20.60%
Technical Minimum KWh Consumed 3,022,742,845 19.88%

Year to Date Performance

Apart from the changes in monthly performance, numbers on the current year to date (YTD) performance are found in the following table. These numbers show that Bitcoin has, so far, consumed as much energy as countries like Greece and Isreal in 2018.

Description Value
Mining Revenue
Average Bitcoin Price $9,147
Average Price Volatility 81.07%
Mining Revenue from Fees $267,118,508
Mining Revenue from Blocks Mined $3,626,138,851
Total Mining Revenue $3,893,257,358
Mining Costs
Total Costs of Mining $1,422,903,617
Percentage of Total Revenue 36.55%
Total KWh Consumed 28,458,072,350
Network Statistics
Total Transactions Processed 37,380,367
Average KWh Consumed per TX 761
Average Fee per Transaction $7.15
Energy cost per TX (at 5 cents per KWh) $38.05
Average Network Hashrate (GH/s) 29,638,721,948
Average Network Effciency (J/GH) 0.22
Bounds
Economic Maximum KWh Consumed 77,865,147,168
Technical Minimum KWh Consumed 12,876,955,814

For a daily estimate of Bitcoin’s energy consumption make sure to visit the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index.

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One Response

  1. Antoine Landrot September 27, 2018