Cryptocurrency mining in Europe has become unprofitable

European miners have faced a global energy crisis that has negatively affected their income — high electricity prices in the EU have made mining many cryptocurrencies unprofitable.

According to crypto experts, the cryptocurrency mining industry is going through hard times. Ethereum used to be the main cryptocurrency for mining on video cards, but ETH has switched to the PoS consensus algorithm. As a result, the cost of video chips in Europe is rapidly decreasing, and mining is becoming a professional business that requires more powerful equipment.

As for the high cost of electricity, 1 kWh in Germany currently costs about 0.31 euros. This price does not allow miners to reach a profitable level even with a powerful graphics card such as Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti.

Using information about the cost of electricity in the world, analysts from the US Energy Information Administration, Cable.co.uk, and 911metallurgist estimated how much it would cost to mine 1 BTC in different countries. According to the study, 1,449 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy are needed to mine 1 bitcoin — while one average American family consumes this amount of electricity for 13 years. The cheapest country for bitcoin mining is Kuwait, where the cost of mining 1 BTC is $ 1393, and the most expensive is Venezuela, where mining 1 BTC costs $ 246,530.

It is worth emphasizing that the transition of ETNs to the «green» blockchain will reduce electricity consumption by 0.2% globally. As explained by the father of Ethereum, the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm is faster, more energy efficient, and safer than Proof-of-Work. From now on, the entire Ethereum network will consume less energy than YouTube, gold mining, BTC POW, ETH PoW, Netflix, gaming, and PayPal.