{"id":27566,"date":"2017-11-02T12:01:15","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T17:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27566"},"modified":"2017-11-02T12:01:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T17:01:15","slug":"bitcoin-vs-gold-which-ones-a-bubble-how-much-energy-do-they-really-consume","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27566","title":{"rendered":"BITCOIN vs. GOLD: Which One\u2019s A Bubble & How Much Energy Do They Really Consume"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BITCOIN vs. GOLD: Which One\u2019s A Bubble & How Much Energy Do They Really Consume<\/a><\/h3>\n

If you are investing in either Bitcoin or Gold, it\u2019s important to understand which asset is behaving more like a bubble than the other.\u00a0 While it\u2019s impossible to understand how the market will value these two very different assets in the future, we can provide some logical analysis that might remove some of the mystery associated with the market price of Bitcoin versus Gold.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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I\u2019ve read some analysis on Bitcoin profitability and energy consumption that seemed unreliable, so I thought I would put my two cents in on the subject.<\/p>\n

For example, many sites are using the Digiconomist\u2019s work on Bitcoin energy consumption<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 However, I believe this analysis has overstated Bitcoin\u2019s energy consumption by a large degree.\u00a0 According to the Digiconomist, Bitcoin\u2019s annual electric use is approximately 24 TerraWatts per year (TWh\/yr):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In a recent article that was forwarded to me by one of my readers, How Many Barrels Of Oil Are Needed To Mine One Bitcoin<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, the author used the information in the chart above to calculate the energy cost to produce each Bitcoin.\u00a0 He stated that the average energy cost for each Bitcoin equals 20 barrels of oil equivalent.\u00a0 Unfortunately, that data is grossly overstated.<\/p>\n

If we look at another website, the author explains in great detail the actual energy cost to produce each Bitcoin.\u00a0 According to Marc Bevand<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, he calculated on July 28th, that the average electric consumption of Bitcoin was 7.7 TWh\/yr, one-third of the Digiconomist\u2019s figure.\u00a0 Here is a chart and table from Marc Bevand\u2019s site showing how he arrived at the figures:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This graph shows the increase in Bitcoin\u2019s hash rate and the efficiency of the Bitcoin Miners at the bottom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BITCOIN vs. GOLD: Which One\u2019s A Bubble & How Much Energy Do They Really Consume If you are investing in either Bitcoin or Gold, it\u2019s important to understand which asset is behaving more like a bubble than the other.\u00a0 While it\u2019s impossible to understand how the market will value these two very different assets in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[4174,1806,263,374,1482,570,647,14206],"class_list":["post-27566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-bitcoin","tag-bubble","tag-energy","tag-gold","tag-mining","tag-news","tag-precious-metals","tag-srsrocco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27567,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27566\/revisions\/27567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}