‘Mining’ Bitcoin takes more energy than mining gold

2 min read Original article ↗
  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

The cryptocurrency’s production generated about as much carbon dioxide over 30 months as 1 million cars in the same period.

Cryptocurrency mining rig

A cryptocurrency-mining facility in Saint-Hyacinthe, Canada. The energy needed to mine gold coin is smaller than the energy to ‘mine’ Bitcoin of similar value. Credit: James MacDonald/Bloomberg/Getty

It takes approximately the same amount of energy to mine a dollar’s worth of cryptocurrency as it does to mine a dollar’s worth of certain metals.

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Nature 563, 296 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07283-3

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