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Bitcoin_wird_zum_Energierisiko_für_die_ganze_Bevölkerung.pdf (240.48 kb)
Bitcoin becomes an energy risk for the entire population
The speculative currency Bitcoin is driving electricity consumption to staggering heights. And thousands of tonnes of electronic waste are produced every year.
Financial experts never tire of warning about the risks of Bitcoin. Because the price fluctuates strongly. In mid-March last year, one Bitcoin was worth just under 3700 francs. One year later, it was already worth almost 56,300 francs. So the value rose 15-fold. But just as quickly as the price rises, it can also fall again.
Bitcoin is not only a risk for investors and speculators, but for the entire population. Because it drives up electricity consumption worldwide to an extreme degree. You have to know this: Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. There are no notes and no coins. All transactions take place digitally. And they take place within a computer network formed by the participants.
Those who provide computing power are rewarded with bitcoins.
The computing power required is enormous. Those who provide computing power are therefore rewarded with Bitcoins. These are mainly people in countries where electricity is cheap. First and foremost China: there, surpluses from hydroelectric power plants in the summer and electricity from coal-fired power plants in the winter cost very little.
Electricity consumption is also high in Russia and the USA. And in Iran, where the power grid is unstable. The authorities assume that several power outages are the fault of Bitcoin participants.
Scientists at Cambridge University in England estimate that the annual electricity consumption caused by Bitcoin trading is already close to 140 terawatt hours per year. One terawatt hour corresponds to one billion kilowatt hours of electricity.
To give you an idea of this gigantic figure, here are a few comparisons:
-Only 26 of around 200 countries worldwide consume more electricity than cryptocurrency.
-Switzerland consumes 57 terawatt hours per year. That is significantly less than half of what the global bitcoin trade needs.
-With the 140 terawatt hours, all Swiss households could be supplied with electricity for nine years.
-Then the scientists from Cambridge allowed themselves another little joke. They calculated that their university could run for almost 800 years with the amount of electricity that bitcoin consumes annually.
8000 tonnes of electronic waste are produced annually
Various economists also tried to compare the electricity consumption of credit card and bitcoin transactions. The estimates diverge somewhat. On average, they concluded that a single payment with bitcoins consumes as much electricity as 700,000 credit card transactions. That is roughly equivalent to the amount of electricity consumed by a Swiss two-person household in five months - or 50,000 hours of Youtube film consumption.
But electricity consumption is not the only problem. For the cryptocurrency to work, it needs ever greater computing power. That means new computers all the time. This creates around 8000 tonnes of electronic waste per year.
The authorities look on inactively. "We have no legal basis to regulate the use of computing power," writes the Federal Office of Energy. In other countries, such as Iran, discussions are underway about special taxes on electricity consumed by Bitcoin participants.
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