The amount of electricity consumed by the largest cryptocurrency networks has decreased by 50%

Due to the fall of the crypto market, mining is no longer profitable. According to Digiconomist, electricity consumption in the bitcoin network alone (excluding other networks) has fallen by a third compared to its peak, to 131 terawatt-hours per year.

This is still quite a lot — for example, it corresponds to the annual electricity consumption of Argentina. The decline in electricity consumption for Ethereum was even sharper: from a peak of 94 TWh per year to 46 TWh per year — roughly the annual consumption of Qatar.

The main reason for the drop is the same for both currencies. Electricity consumption by the cryptocurrency network is related to mining. As the price of cryptocurrencies has fallen (for example, BTC has dropped from 69 thousand dollars to 20 thousand), the amount of remuneration for miners has also fallen.