Bitcoin’s ongoing meteoric price rise has received the bulk of recent press attention with a lot of discussion around whether or not it’s a bubble waiting to burst.   However, most the coverage has missed out one of the more interesting and unintended consequences of this price increase. That is the surge in global electricity consumption used to “mine” more Bitcoins.  According to Digiconomist’s Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, as of Monday November 20th, 2017 Bitcoin’s current estimated annual electricity consumption stands at 29.05TWh.  If Bitcoin miners were a country they’d rank 61st in the world in terms of electricity consumption.

Source: PowerCompare

Date: November 27th, 2017

Link: https://powercompare.co.uk/bitcoin/

Discussion

1) Why does it matter that Bitcoin mining consumes so much energy?

2) The article shows that places like the Gaza Strip are some of the top places in the world for Bitcoin mining.  Is this a concern, or not?