To carry out this verification and to be able to mine the cryptocurrency, computers would need to solve complex mathematical calculations.
Even more importantly, energy demand exploded with the new machines — which needed energy mainly for processing and cooling.
After eight years, the energy demand for mining Bitcoin has grown — and today has reached 116.71 terawatt-hours per year, according to data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, or CBECI.
Some influencers have recently appeared on social media and are associating Bitcoin with an alleged increase in the use of fossil fuel energy, especially coal.
Bitcoin represents an energy expenditure of 0.47% of the total energy produced and only 0.54% of the energy waste worldwide.
Even more alarming is what the CBECI points out regarding unused electronic devices.
Therefore, it is clear that Bitcoin’s energy consumption is not as relevant as it’s said to be, when compared with global energy production and waste.
However, it is considerably less, for example, than the energy expenditure by the American military force, which according to data compiled by Statista emits 59 Mt CO2.
Fortunately, there are simple ways to offset the carbon footprint left by Bitcoin.
It is not expected that energy consumption by mining will increase a lot in the coming years, as it is more associated with computing power than the adoption of Bitcoin itself.
To achieve the goal of a green Bitcoin network, crypto mining companies can do their part by buying carbon credit tokens and pushing for production with less use of fossil fuels.
Bitcoin is open and can go to the ends of the Earth, regardless of limitations or prohibitions imposed by third parties.