Bitcoin has grown its sustainable energy mix
Bitcoin, the world’s most secure blockchain by hash rate, has increased its sustainable energy mix at a rate of 6.2% over the past two years, noted David Batten, a ClimateTech venture capitalist, in a tweet posted on February 20.
Bitcoin’s sustainable energy base is rising
At this rate, David explains, the growth of Bitcoin’s sustainable energy base is one of the fastest in the industry and is an “impressive” feat for any platform or major player in any demanding sector.
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Here are 4 new charts for Bitcoin & Energy#Bitcoin has increased its sustainable energy mix by 6.2% pa from January 2020
* 6.2% growth is faster than any major industry
* 52.6% sustainable mix is ⬆️ any major industry— Daniel Batten (@DSBatten) 20 February 2023
Consequently, Bitcoin has a sustainable energy mix of 52.6%, up from around 32% in mid-June 2020. The sustainable energy mix is a calculation that indicates the pace at which a platform or an industry uses sustainable and renewable energy to run its operations. Renewable energy sources cannot be used up, but some can also be unsustainable.
However, if sustainable renewable energy sources such as wind and water are utilized for power operation without harming the environment, an industry using this system will drastically increase its assessment of a sustainable energy mix.
Over the years, water, solar and wind sources have proved sufficient. They have been widely used by Bitcoin miners to power energy-intensive mining rigs.
Bitcoin miners rely on renewable energy sources
Considering David’s findings, Bitcoin miners have gradually increased their sustainable energy sources to power energy-hungry mining rigs.
In particular, it was observed that Bitcoin’s emissions have been lower since the Chinese government banned cryptocurrency mining in its jurisdiction in mid-2021.
Subsequently, the authorities in China argued that crypto mining increased the country’s emissions, which directly contradicts their efforts to gradually become more dependent on renewable energy sources. The strict ban on crypto and Bitcoin mining and their goal to reduce their carbon footprint follows their signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015.
Besides emission reduction, David claimed that Bitcoin’s emission intensity has fallen in tandem. Emission intensity measures emissions per KWH. This metric has declined in recent years as more miners opt for renewable energy sources.
Bitcoin operates with a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm. It relies on a community of miners operating rigs to verify transactions and secure the network.
At the time of writing on February 20, Bitcoin has a hashrate of 311.6 EH/s and a difficulty of 39.16T. Mining pools such as Foundry USA and AntPool dominate the BTC mining sector. The top two pools have a cumulative hash rate that exceeds 50% of the total.
Feature image from Canva, chart from TradingView.
