Bitcoin mining energy consumption is like, whoa, on another level, matching up with some whole countries out there. People always talk about how bad it is for the environment, but then you got these Bitcoin fans saying it’s not all bad. So, like, what’s the deal with that? Who’s actually right here?
Proof-of-Work: The Nitty-Gritty Details
To keep the Bitcoin network safe from spammy attacks, they got this thing called “proof-of-work.” It’s like a shield or something. This whole algorithm was cooked up by Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor way back in 1993, before Bitcoin was even a thing. Basically, you gotta crunch some numbers (do the “work”) to get the green light to make a transaction (originally, to shoot out an email).
In the early days, mining Bitcoin was a piece of cake. You could do it on your regular ol’ PC. But as the demand shot up, so did the difficulty level. Now, you got these massive mining operations with super high-tech gear just to solve those math puzzles at lightning speed. By 2018, Bitcoin’s energy consumption was rubbing elbows with Nigeria and Denmark. Yikes.
