Bitcoin mining is an integral part of the Bitcoin system. It is a way to ensure the security of transactions and create new bitcoins, but it also uses an incredible amount of electricity. In this article, we’ll explore why Bitcoin mining uses so much energy and how it’s affecting the environment.
What Is Mining?
The process of adding transaction records to Bitcoin’s public ledger of previous transactions is known as mining. Because it is a chain of blocks, this log of prior transactions is referred to as the blockchain. The blockchain is used to confirm transactions with the rest of the network.
The blockchain is used by Bitcoin nodes to differentiate between legal Bitcoin transactions and attempts to re-spend coins that have already been spent elsewhere.
Bitcoin Mining Uses Electricity, But It’s Not As Bad As Many People Think
The bitcoin mining is not as bad as many people think, but it’s still a significant portion of the world’s electricity consumption. Some estimates peg Bitcoin’s total annual electricity use at nearly 30 terawatt hours (TWh) per year.
Verify And Confirm All Transactions On The Bitcoin Network
As you’d expect, miners also verify and confirm all transactions on the Bitcoin network, which are then recorded in a public ledger. This activity is necessary for two reasons: it ensures that no one can spend their bitcoins twice (a problem called double spending), and it keeps track of how many bitcoins each user has.
When you send someone some Bitcoins, your transaction gets sent out to every miner on the network so they can verify that you have those Bitcoins before they add it to their copy of this public ledger we call “the blockchain.”
For a miner to accept your transaction as valid, he must solve what’s known as a “hashing problem.” This involves taking all of the data in your block header–which includes things like who sent how much money where–and turning them into an alphanumeric string called a hash value; if his solution matches what everyone else has calculated from their copies of all blocks since time began (aka “the consensus”), then congratulations! You’re now officially part of Bitcoin history forever!
Conclusion
The bitcoin mining uses a lot of electricity, but it’s not as bad as people think. The Bitcoin network is estimated to use around 29 terawatt-hours per year–less than two percent of the world’s total energy consumption and only about 0.13% of all global power demand.
