Due to the stability in revenues available to miners, Bitcoin’s energy consumption has been stable as well recently. This can be observed as well in the average network hashrate. The highlights of the past month are as follows:
- Mining revenues were stable.
- Mining revenue from transaction fees decreased by 15 percent.
- The average fee per single transaction was $0.47.
- The total network power consumption increased by a little over 3 percent.
- The average energy consumption per transaction was down by around 5 percent, and amounts to 828 KWh per unique transaction (enough to power 1 U.S. household for more than 27 days).
The full report is featured below:
Description | Value | Monthly change | Trend |
---|---|---|---|
Mining Revenue | |||
Average Bitcoin Price | $6,477 | -1.76% | |
Average Price Volatility | 30.31% | -32.63% | |
Mining Revenue from Fees | $3,520,464 | -15.35% | |
Mining Revenue from Blocks Mined | $402,491,337 | -0.13% | |
Total Mining Revenue | $406,011,800 | -0.28% | |
Mining Costs | |||
Total Costs of Mining | $310,515,795 | 3.33% | |
Percentage of Total Revenue | 76.48% | 3.62% | |
Total KWh Consumed | 6,210,315,898 | 3.33% | |
Network Statistics | |||
Total Transactions Processed | 7,501,075 | 8.60% | |
Average KWh Consumed per TX | 828 | -4.83% | |
Average Fee per Transaction | $0.47 | -21.67% | |
Energy cost per TX (at 5 cents per KWh) | $41.40 | -4.83% | |
Average Network Hashrate (GH/s) | 56,492,517,128 | 0.39% | |
Average Network Effciency (J/GH) | 0.15 | -0.34% | |
Bounds | |||
Economic Maximum KWh Consumed | 8,120,236,009 | -0.28% | |
Technical Minimum KWh Consumed | 4,848,274,095 | 3.68% |
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 Switzerland in 2018.
Description | Value |
---|---|
Mining Revenue | |
Average Bitcoin Price | $8,162 |
Average Price Volatility | 66.04% |
Mining Revenue from Fees | $284,300,482 |
Mining Revenue from Blocks Mined | $5,328,963,729 |
Total Mining Revenue | $5,613,264,212 |
Mining Costs | |
Total Costs of Mining | $2,647,999,557 |
Percentage of Total Revenue | 47.17% |
Total KWh Consumed | 52,959,991,141 |
Network Statistics | |
Total Transactions Processed | 64,883,403 |
Average KWh Consumed per TX | 816 |
Average Fee per Transaction | $4.38 |
Energy cost per TX (at 5 cents per KWh) | $40.80 |
Average Network Hashrate (GH/s) | 38,781,077,292 |
Average Network Effciency (J/GH) | 0.19 |
Bounds | |
Economic Maximum KWh Consumed | 112,265,284,237 |
Technical Minimum KWh Consumed | 32,642,992,567 |
Disclaimer
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.
For a daily estimate of Bitcoin’s energy consumption make sure to visit the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index.
“The average energy consumption per transaction was down by around 5 percent, and amounts to 828 KWh per unique transaction (enough to power 1 U.S. household for more than 27 days).”
if we assume 10c KWH which is pretty average in the us this is $87.8. The average transaction cost is $.43 this would imply miners are losing $87 per transaction. I think what you mean to say is that an entire block of transaction is 828 KWH which is for a few thousand transactions. Not sure if I’m entirely correct but 828 KWH per transaction seems extremely high and not economical for the network to function as it does. If I’m wrong please explain to me where. Thanks.
Nevermind I see the issue it seems this cost per transaction includes the cost of the new 12.5 coins that are mined. IMO this is disingenious as it implies that the cost of a transaction is a few 100x higher than it really is to the end user. I mean you could say that we all share this cost through supply increase decreasing our coin values. This is an interesting analysis and shows that transactions must be able to scale a few 100x to be able for the network to maintain hashrate when the blockreward dissapears over the next few decades.