CRYPTOGENESIS | 2018

Posted on by michaelsaup

CRYPTOGENESIS | 2018

another one bites the dust as
another one dusts the bit

The following describes the energy consumption of Bitcoin and was calculated on Thursday, January 10, 2019. Bitcoin needs massive amounts of energy for the operation (mining) and maintenance of the underlying networked cryptographic technology called blockchain.

[All images from our exhibition at Muffatwerk, Munich, Germany November 2018]

In the whole year of 2019, Bitcoin will consume the minimum amount of 47.65 TWh of electrical energy. Probably more. This is the same amount of electricity, that the state of Singapore is consuming during the same period. We could instead power 4,412,481 U.S. households with this energy cannibalized by the Bitcoin network.

Yesterday alone, the Bitcoin network used 130,561,095 kWh of electrical energy for operation and maintenance.

That means, that every single second today, the Bitcoin network uses 1,509 kWh of electrical energy.

That means, that every single second today, we burn 1,969 coal briquettes for Bitcoin (a cube of coal with the side length of 1 m, a weight of 1,119 kg and a volume of 0.96 m³).

  • Yes, per minute these are 118,140 coal briquettes (a cube of coal with the side length of 4 m, a weight of 67,127 kg and a volume of 57.42 m³).
  • Yes, per hour these are 7,088,400 coal briquettes (a cube of coal with the side length of 15 m, a weight of 4,027,629 kg and a volume of 3,444.96 m³).
  • Yes, per day these are 170,121,600 coal briquettes (a cube of coal with the side length of 44 m, a weight of 96,663,093 kg and a volume of 82,679.10 m³).
  • Yes, per year these are 62,136,914,400 coal briquettes (a cube of coal with the side length of 311 m, a weight of 35,306,194,762 kg and a volume of 30,198,540.40 m³).

The amount of coal needed per single bitcoin transaction (1296 briquettes, 3 layers)

  • Specification of a single lignite coal briquette (UNION):
    • length: 0.1800 m
    • depth : 0.0600 m
    • height: 0.0450 m
    • volume: 0.0005 m³
    • weight: 0.5682 kg
    • energy: 0.7660 kWh (considering 25% combined efficiency of mining, power generation and power distribution)

This document was auto-generated by orbis-cryptogenesis-001.v1915.b20190110-154602