Global Ethereum (ETH) energy consumption up to December 8, 2024

Ethereum's annualized footprint in electricity consumption declined substantially in the wake of Ethereum Merge in September 2022. Originally, the energy required to mine Ethereum in 2021 exceeding the consumption of countries like Colombia or Czechia - but the move away from proof of work (mining) to proof of stake (staking) changed things substantially. This according to a source that tries to estimate the energy consumption of Ethereum (ETH). It does by assuming that miner costs and income are the same thing: The higher the miner income, the more powerful machinery it can support. Essentially, the source first calculated how much miners earn, then estimated how much of this income is spent on electricity and how much per kWH, to finally be converted into consumption figures. The main reason this figure is an estimate, is due to the decentralized nature of Ethereum or cryptocurrencies in general: There is no central authority that tracks how many computers there are or where miners submit figures. Ethereum energy consumption is of importance for developments regarding NFTs and other applications of decentralized finance or DeFi - as the market share of the Ethereum blockchain in DeFi far exceeds that of other blockchains.