Revolution in Bitcoin Mining: Efficiency Skyrockets, Defying Energy Consumption Fears

Bitcoin mining, once equated to energy usage of a small country, has dramatically improved in efficiency. Over the last five years, Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) miners have enhanced their energy efficiency per coin produced, according to coindesk.

Kyle Waters from Coin Metrics announced that ASIC’s competitiveness is soaring. Efficiency is gauged by the hashrate, a measure of computational power used in mining Bitcoin. Coin Metrics recently reported a pioneering method to identify the machines contributing the most to the network hashrate.

The study found a 63% decline in energy use from July 2018 to May 2023 for the same amount of work. Bitcoin network, as per Coin Metrics, uses 13.4 gigawatts of power, 13% less than Cambridge University’s estimate.

Interestingly, the Coin Metrics methodology attributed the network’s hashrate to specific machines. The newest machines, Bitmain Antminer S19 XP and MicroBT M50, were found twice as efficient as machines released in 2016.

As the next Bitcoin halving looms, which will halve the mining reward, efficient mining machines become critical. Most efficient machines, according to Coin Metrics, are produced by Bitmain.

Thus, the growing efficiency of Bitcoin mining machines is redefining the energy consumption narrative, heralding a revolution in the crypto mining industry.

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