Bitcoin mining and its energy footprint

By K. J. O'Dwyer, David Malone. 2014

550 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Networks and Communications, Information Systems

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7359eff7806178f0b88e57cd397a941677ae0732

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Citations in the corpus

A Survey on Security and Privacy Issues of Bitcoin (2017, background): “Although the use of PoW makes the mining process more resistant to various security threats such as sybil and double spending, it consumes a ridiculous amount of energy and computing resources [67], [68].”
Secure and Trustable Electronic Medical Records Sharing using Blockchain (2017, methodology): “For example, the amount of energy used by Bitcoin mining is comparable to the Irish national energy consumption 15 .”
Blockchain and IoT Integration: A Systematic Survey (2018, background): “However, the PoW has been strongly criticized because it is considered excessively difficult, computationally heavy and very expensive in terms of energy consumption [35].”
The Macroeconomics of Central Bank Issued Digital Currencies (2016, result): “O’Dwyer and Malone (2014) estimate that the total electricity consumption of the Bitcoin network in early 2014 was comparable to that of Ireland (roughly 5GW).”
Bitcoin and Beyond: A Technical Survey on Decentralized Digital Currencies (2016, background): “[Bedford Taylor 2013, O’Dwyer and Malone 2014] tell the story of Bitcoin hardware and its energy footprint in detail.”
Blockchain in healthcare and health sciences - A scoping review (2019, background): “This is illustrated by the fact that the current electricity consumed for Bitcoin mining is comparable to the electricity requirements of a smaller country [10].”
A Survey of Blockchain From the Perspectives of Applications, Challenges, and Opportunities (2019, methodology): “Then, the SHA-256 hash function will be used to convert all the information inside a block header to create a hash value.”
Climate change and COP26: Are digital technologies and information management part of the problem or the solution? An editorial reflection and call to action (2022, background): “The sustainability of the blockchain is controversial; for instance, O ’ Dwyer and Malone (2014) stated that the energy consumption of the Bitcoin mining network is comparable with the Ireland electricity consumption.”
A blockchain-based smart grid: towards sustainable local energy markets (2017, background): “No need for central intermediaries [9] High energy consumption [31]”
Ouroboros: A Provably Secure Proof-of-Stake Blockchain Protocol (2017, unknown): “Indeed, early calculations indicated that the energy requirements of the protocol were comparable to that of a small country [20].”
The Quest for Scalable Blockchain Fabric: Proof-of-Work vs. BFT Replication (2015, unknown): “1-10 GW [49].”
Centrally Banked Cryptocurrencies (2015, background): “…is ultimately due to its reliance on broadcast and the need to expend signiﬁcant computational energy in proofs-of-work — by one estimate [21], comparable to Ireland’s electricity consumption — in order to manage the transaction ledger and make double-spending attacks prohibitively…”
Applications of Blockchains in the Internet of Things: A Comprehensive Survey (2019, background): “2) Proof of Stake: The Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm aims to cut back on the ever-increasing electricity consumption of PoW blockchain networks [49].”
Bitcoin for energy commodities before and after the December 2013 crash: diversifier, hedge or safe haven? (2017, unknown): “We focus on energy commodities because energy, in the form of electricity, is an essential input in Bitcoin production.3 O’Dwyer and Malone (2013) estimate that electricity consumed in Bitcoin production is comparable to the electricity consumption of the whole Ireland.”