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The cost of Bitcoin mining has never really increased

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  • Yo-Der Song

    (University College London)

  • Tomaso Aste

    (University College London)

Abstract

The Bitcoin network is burning a large amount of energy for mining. In this paper we estimate the lower bound for the global energy cost for a period of ten years from 2010, taking into account changing oil costs, improvements in hashing technologies and hashing activity. Despite a ten-billion-fold increase in hashing activity and a ten-million-fold increase in total energy consumption, we find the cost relative to the volume of transactions has not increased nor decreased since 2010. This is consistent with the perspective that, in order to keep a the Blockchain system secure from double spending attacks, the proof or work must cost a sizable fraction of the value that can be transferred through the network. We estimate that in the Bitcoin network this fraction is of the order of 1%.

Suggested Citation

  • Yo-Der Song & Tomaso Aste, 2020. "The cost of Bitcoin mining has never really increased," Papers 2004.04605, arXiv.org, revised May 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2004.04605
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Tut, 2022. "Bitcoin: Future or Fad?," Springer Books, in: Thomas Walker & Frederick Davis & Tyler Schwartz (ed.), Big Data in Finance, pages 133-157, Springer.
    2. Pavel Ciaian & d'Artis Kancs & Miroslava Rajcaniova, 2021. "Interdependencies between Mining Costs, Mining Rewards and Blockchain Security," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 22(1), pages 25-62, May.
    3. Jiri Kukacka & Ladislav Kristoufek, 2023. "Fundamental and speculative components of the cryptocurrency pricing dynamics," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, December.
    4. Agostino Capponi & Sveinn Olafsson & Humoud Alsabah, 2021. "Proof-of-Work Cryptocurrencies: Does Mining Technology Undermine Decentralization?," Papers 2106.09783, arXiv.org.

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