Energy consumption of a Bitcoin (BTC) and VISA transaction as of May 1, 2023

The average energy consumption for one single Bitcoin transaction in 2023 could equal several hundreds of thousands of VISA card transactions. This according to a source that tries to estimate the energy consumption of both Bitcoin (BTC) over time. It does so by estimating how much income miners possibly spend on electricity, as there is no institution that tracks how much energy the cryptocurrency actually consumes. This also applies to which countries mine the most Bitcoin, as this is estimated by cross referencing IP addresses.

A matter of design: why Bitcoin consumes so much energy

Of all the 21 million Bitcoins that can exist at the same time, nearly 90 percent was already mined in mid-2021. This, however, does not necessarily mean that the Bitcoin supply is running out as the last Bitcoin was forecast to be mined around the year 2140. This is a design choice in the cryptocurrency: The closer Bitcoin gets to its supply limits, the computing power – and therefore energy - needed to mine goes up incrementally. The BTC mining difficulty or amount of computing power being applied to mine Bitcoin reflects that: Bitcoin mining in, say, 2014 – when there were less Bitcoin in circulation - was easier and less energy consuming than in 2021. By then, there were significantly more coins in circulation and the cryptocurrency’s design essentially tries to halt the creation of more.

China’s doubts on whether Bitcoin is green

Over the course of 2021, the price of Bitcoin was over 60,000 U.S. dollars but by the summer only half of that amount remained. This was partially caused by China’s Financial Stability and Development Committee trying to curb domestic crypto mining since May 2021 – which led some to doubt whether there was a future for the cryptocurrency. China’s efforts are said to have been triggered due to remote mining farms demanding so much electricity that idle coal mines were restarted without government approval. Whilst this was never confirmed, China is generally seen as the most coal consuming country in the world.