Bitcoin's power consumption myth

Several published articles are claiming that cryptocurrency mining - and here specifically bitcoin - requires significant amount of energy. The authors are mostly referring to the same study with limited peer-review at this point. But let’s assume that the reported estimated power consumption of 200 million kWh was correct, the claim that this is too much energy seems to be based on the comparison to the VISA payment network. However, this argument fails entirely to account for the fact that VISA employs 12,400 people. Most of these employees are driving their cars to work, subsequently sit in air-conditioned offices using a computer, and phones powered by electricity.

An average desktop computer or laptop consumes around 600 kWh in an eight hour period.

But of course, VISA is not the only credit card company, there’s American Express and MasterCard - both with more employees than VISA. And, unlike Bitcoin which is peer-to-peer, credit card transactions usually also involve a bank. JPMorgan Chase employs more than 250,000 people alone.

At this point it might be worth pointing out, that aforementioned study was not conducted by independent researchers but by an employee of the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

PWC's clients include Chase, Bank of America, American Express and other financial institutions. So, it seems at least questionable if the research was motivated by genuine environmental concerns or driven (and pay for) by ulterior motives.

Second aside that bitcoin miners largely use renewable resources (see the Cambridge Report), common sense suggests that power generators would sell their product to consumers if that market would provide higher prices, however bitcoin miners on average paid $0.05 per kilowatt hour. As such it stands to reason that miners largely bought excess energy, and indeed do not add to pollution in any meaningful way.