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The energy demands for mining four major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, has outstripped the energy costs of mining.
Mining cryptocurrencies implying future complex calculations to confirm new transactions and add them to the decentralized ledger on which a cryptocurrency operates.
It's a process that can be done on varying scales and compute levels, with Unicef Australia even deploying a browser-based version that allowed you to use your computer.
The research is carried out on the basis of the actual requirements of the current mining minerals and metals.
The paper released today in Springer Nature found, between 1 January 2016 and 30 June 2018, en took 17 megajoules (MJ) to produce US $ 1 worth of Bitcoin, 7 MJ for Ethereum and Litecoin, and 14 MJ for Monero.
While US $ 1 worth of aluminum took 122 MJ to produce, the four other metals tested came in at or below the energy requirement for cryptocurrencies.
Platinum tied with Ethereum and Litecoin at 7 MJ, with gold coming in just behind at 5 MJ.
9 MJ – still less than the Monero and Ethereum.
The paper's authors, Max Krause and Thabet Tolaymat, acknowledged that the cryptocurrencies have been quite volatile, the hashrates for three of the four cryptocurrencies in the study have been consistently updated, suggesting a similar trend in the amount of energy required.
They are extrapolated from the 2.5-year period of the study looked at.
However, differences in electricity production between countries means that one crypto coin mined in Canada.
