Bitcoin's energy consumption 'equals that of Switzerland'

By Chris Baraniuk Technology reporter
3 July 2019

Bitcoin uses as much energy as the whole of Switzerland, a new online tool from the University of Cambridge shows.

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Mr de Vries said that, despite its many proponents, the Bitcoin network has an energy consumption problem. It uses lots of energy despite processing fewer than 100 million financial transactions per year.

He added that the number was "completely insignificant" in global terms. The traditional financial industry processes 500 billion transactions per year, he added.

Mr de Vries said that Bitcoin still appears to use far more energy per transaction than all the world's banks put together, when considering the amount of energy used by data centres.

The electricity used for Bitcoin produces about 22 megatons of CO2 annually, a study in the scientific journal Joule estimated. That is as much as Kansas City in the US.