Bitcoin Sustainability Report November 2017

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.

November Highlights

November should have been the month of the planned SegWit2x hard-fork, but this project was abandoned before it could happen. The market responded positively to these events, taking Bitcoin (and its energy consumption) to new all-time highs. The highlights of the past month are as follows:

  • Mining revenues increased by 58 percent.
  • Mining revenue from transaction fees increased by 155 percent.
  • The average fee per single transaction was $8.22.
  • The total network power consumption increased by almost 31 percent.
  • The average energy consumption per transaction was up by around 26 percent, and amounts to 256 KWh per unique transaction (enough to power 1 U.S. household for more than 8 days).

The full report is featured below:

Description Value Monthly change Trend
Mining Revenue
Total Blocks Mined 4,359 -9.72%
Average Bitcoin Price $7,807 47.05%
Average Price Volatility 68.21% 5.36%
Mining Revenue from Fees $73,451,084 154.80%
Mining Revenue from Blocks Mined $502,052,271 50.00%
Total Mining Revenue $575,503,355 58.31%
Mining Costs
Total Costs of Mining $114,282,392 26.28%
Percentage of Total Revenue 19.86% -20.23%
Total KWh Consumed 2,285,647,846 26.28%
Network Power Consumption (GW) 3.17 30.49%
Network Statistics
Total Transactions Processed 8,930,956 0.03%
Average KWh Consumed per TX 256 26.11%
Average Fee per Transaction $8.22 154.49%
Energy cost per TX (at 5 cents per KWh) $12.80 26.11%
Average Network Hashrate (GH/s) 11,981,583,655 12.87%
Average Network Effciency (J/GH) 0.26 15.58%
Bounds
Economic Maximum KWh Consumed 11,510,067,091 58.31%
Technical Minimum KWh Consumed 862,834,219 9.26%
Maximum Power Consumption (GW) 15.99 63.66%
Minimum Power Consumption (GW) 1.2 13.21%

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 Sri Lanka consumes over a full year, with one more month to go until the end of the year.

It should be noted that the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index wasn’t officially launched until February 10, 2017. For this reason, the year to date performance is measured as of this date.

Description Value Nov vs. YTD
Mining Revenue
Total Blocks Mined 44,446 9.81%
Average Bitcoin Price $3,235 241.33%
Average Price Volatility 62.76% 108.68%
Mining Revenue from Fees $249,833,083 29.40%
Mining Revenue from Blocks Mined $1,897,222,515 26.46%
Total Mining Revenue $2,147,055,598 26.80%
Mining Costs
Total Costs of Mining $630,608,012 18.12%
Percentage of Total Revenue 29.37% 67.61%
Total KWh Consumed 12,612,160,246 18.12%
Network Power Consumption (GW) 1.79 177.00%
Network Statistics
Total Transactions Processed 80,913,461 11.04%
Average KWh Consumed per TX 156 164.10%
Average Fee per Transaction $3.09 266.02%
Energy cost per TX (at 5 cents per KWh) $7.80 164.10%
Average Network Hashrate (GH/s) 6,523,784,552 183.66%
Average Network Effciency (J/GH) 0.27 96.36%
Bounds
Economic Maximum KWh Consumed 42,941,111,961 26.80%
Technical Minimum KWh Consumed 4,587,908,420 18.81%

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. bitcoin miner tool 2017 April 2, 2019