According to the Bitcoin Mining Council‘s Q4 2021 report, Bitcoin mining would now be largely sustainable.
Q4 #Bitcoin Mining Council Survey Confirms Improvements in Sustainable Power Mix and Technological Efficiency. Estimated sustainable energy mix was 58.5%. Join us at 5pm ET today for a full briefing.https://t.co/t1gTZV9GtT
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) January 18, 2022
Bitcoin mining has become sustainable
In fact, the BMC estimates that 58.5% of Bitcoin mining now takes place using a sustainable energy mix.
The estimate comes from a BMC survey of about 46% of global Bitcoin miners. 66.1% of respondents answered that they were using electricity from a sustainable energy mix as of December 31, 2021.
Based on this data, an estimate was made that electricity obtained from the mining industry’s mix of sustainable sources is now about 58.5% of the total.
In addition, the technological efficiency of Bitcoin’s global network also grew by 9% in the fourth quarter of 2021, and there are prospects for making it even more efficient.
Intel’s project
One of these comes from a project by Intel, which is planning to launch a high-efficiency chip designed just for Bitcoin mining. Intel is the world’s largest processor manufacturer, so its entry into the market could have a significant impact.
Intel will be attending the upcoming International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in February, with a talk explicitly titled “Bonanza Mine: An Ultra-Low-Voltage Energy-Efficient Bitcoin Mining ASIC.”
Elon Musk’s promise
In light of this, one wonders if Elon Musk is ready to announce the reopening of Bitcoin payments for Tesla.
In fact, in May of last year, he stated that the company had decided to suspend Bitcoin payments due to high energy consumption from unsustainable sources. The following month it had stated that they would be willing to rehabilitate them if there was reasonable confirmation that at least 50% of the energy used came from clean sources.
The BMC’s is only an estimate, but it is not far off from reasonable confirmation.
In addition, Michael Saylor, a key member of the BMC and CEO of MicroStrategy, recently stated that he considers the energy use for Bitcoin mining globally to be essentially “irrelevant” because as a percentage it is still an extremely small consumption compared to the rest. According to Saylor, the amount of energy Bitcoin is using is actually insignificant when compared to that used in other industries, and would therefore be “negligible” compared to total energy use worldwide.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/01/20/sustainable-bitcoin-mining-tesla-payments/