Mining energy consumption up by 63% in one year

What’s new? According to the international Bitcoin Mining Council's (BMC) report for the second quarter of 2022, mining energy consumption has increased by 63% over the year, while hashrate has risen by 137% over the same period. The council collected data on more than 50% of the bitcoin network. According to BMC, cryptocurrency mining accounts for 0,086% of total carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, it is noted that cryptocurrency mining consumes 0,15% of the world's electricity.

Report by BMC

Hashrate is the total processing power in a network. Mining difficulty determines the amount of computing power it takes to find a new block in a blockchain. Generally, higher hashrates indicate higher network performance.

What else does the report say? BMC informs that the share of energy from renewable sources used for cryptocurrency mining increased by 6% over the year to 59,5%. The council noted that along with the increase in the use of energy from clean sources, the efficiency of mining increased — by 46% over the year. The efficiency is achieved due to the technical characteristics of the cryptocurrency mining equipment.

The BMC was initiated by Michael J. Saylor, CEO of analytics software vendor MicroStrategy, who convened a meeting with mining companies and representatives of the blockchain industry in May 2021. At that time, it was decided to create a council aimed at finding and implementing ways to reduce energy consumption by miners and make the entire industry more environmentally friendly. BMC members include Argo Blockchain, Hive Blockchain, Marathon Digital Holdings, Riot Blockchain and Galaxy Digital.

In July, Swedish Energy Minister Hashayar Farmanbar said that miners would be supplied with the resource on a residual basis, as authorities give priority to companies that provide jobs. He added that Sweden needs energy “for more useful things than bitcoin.”