Bitcoin’s energy consumption dropped slightly in February when compared to the previous month, although this can primarily be attributed to February being a short month. The most notable change this month is that Bitcoin transaction fees are on the rise again. The highlights of the past month are as follows:
- Mining revenues dropped more than 8 percent.
- Mining revenue from transaction fees increased by 23 percent.
- The total network power consumption decreased by around 8 percent.
- The average fee per single transaction was $0.30.
- The average energy consumption per transaction was down by around 10 percent, and amounts to 395 KWh per unique transaction (enough to power 1 U.S. household for more than days).
The full report is featured below:
| Description | Value | Monthly change | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mining Revenue | |||
| Average Bitcoin Price | $3,690 | 0.27% |  |
| Average Price Volatility | 31.23% | -40.01% |  |
| Mining Revenue from Fees | $2,802,669 | 23.26% | |
| Mining Revenue from Blocks Mined | $187,678,109 | -8.65% | |
| Total Mining Revenue | $190,480,779 | -8.31% | |
| Mining Costs | |||
| Total Costs of Mining | $178,660,979 | -8.28% | |
| Percentage of Total Revenue | 93.79% | 0.03% | |
| Total KWh Consumed | 3,663,200,367 | -8.27% | |
| Network Statistics | |||
| Total Transactions Processed | 9,268,440 | 1.56% |  |
| Average KWh Consumed per TX | 395 | -9.82% | |
| Average Fee per Transaction | $0.30 | 20.00% | |
| Energy cost per TX (at 5 cents per KWh) | $19.75 | -9.82% | |
| Average Network Hashrate (GH/s) | 47,791,478,076 | 3.65% | |
| Average Network Effciency (J/GH) | 0.11 | -1.98% | |
| Bounds | |||
| Economic Maximum KWh Consumed | 3,809,615,570 | -8.31% | |
| Technical Minimum KWh Consumed | 3,403,375,348 | -6.42% | |
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 is still on track to consume as much energy as a country like Singapore in 2019. Moreover, when comparing to the previous year, we find that Bitcoin consumed 4% more energy up until the end of February 2019 than over the same period in 2018. Mining revenues are, however, substantially lower than at the start of the previous year.
| Description | 2018 | 2017 | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mining Revenue | |||
| Average Bitcoin Price | $3,685 | $11,333 | -67.48% |
| Average Price Volatility | 42.18% | 117.32% | -64.05% |
| Mining Revenue from Fees | $5,076,517 | $233,990,911 | -97.83% |
| Mining Revenue from Blocks Mined | $393,138,356 | $1,500,769,637 | -73.80% |
| Total Mining Revenue | $398,214,873 | $1,734,760,548 | -77.04% |
| Mining Costs | |||
| Total Costs of Mining | $373,454,446 | $367,212,718 | 1.70% |
| Percentage of Total Revenue | 93.78% | 21.17% | 343.04% |
| Total KWh Consumed | 7,656,742,440 | 7,344,254,359 | 4.25% |
| Network Statistics | |||
| Total Transactions Processed | 18,394,613 | 14,328,907 | 28.37% |
| Average KWh Consumed per TX | 416 | 513 | -18.91% |
| Average Fee per Transaction | $0.28 | $16.33 | -98.29% |
| Energy cost per TX (at 5 cents per KWh) | $20.80 | $25.65 | -18.91% |
| Average Network Hashrate (GH/s) | 46,906,239,255 | 21,832,388,349 | 114.85% |
| Average Network Effciency (J/GH) | 0.12 | 0.24 | -51.47% |
| Bounds | |||
| Economic Maximum KWh Consumed | 7,964,297,462 | 34,695,210,966 | -77.04% |
| Technical Minimum KWh Consumed | 7,039,625,411 | 3,276,695,559 | 114.84% |
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.
Bitcoin’s energy consumption dropped slightly in February when compared to the previous month, although this can primarily be attributed to February being a short month. The most notable change this month is that Bitcoin transaction fees are on the rise again. The highlights of the past month are as follows:
Personally for me mining went to a new level after El Salvador announced that they would be mining with volcano energy, it really is already a next level. But I’m pretty cautious about cryptocurrencies myself because of the rather high level of scam in both projects and software that they make. I almost “invested” in a trading robot myself recently, which turned out to be just a scam! Although it had good reviews.