How much electricity does Bitcoin mining use?
The most cited figure comes from Cambridge. Its 2025 industry report puts the network at about 138 TWh a year as of mid-2024. The live Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index tracks it over time, with a lower and upper bound, because nobody can meter every miner.
138 TWh
Electricity per year
Cambridge, mid-2024
0.54%
Share of global electricity
Cambridge, mid-2024
39.8 Mt
COâe per year
Cambridge estimate
0.08%
Share of global emissions
Cambridge estimate
You can also estimate it yourself. Power is hashrate times efficiency, and hashrate is public. Thatâs what the meter at the top does:
The weak spot is the efficiency. Nobody knows exactly which machines are running, and the gap between an old and a new one is huge. Thatâs why Cambridge publishes a range, and why the meter has a slider.
Why does Bitcoin mining use so much energy?
Because the energy is the security. Under proof of work, a miner can only add a block by finding a hash below a target, and the only way to find one is to guess, billions of times a second. To rewrite past blocks, an attacker would have to redo that work faster than everyone else combined. The Bitcoin whitepaper builds the whole system on that cost.
Definition · Proof of work
A way to agree on a shared ledger where adding a block requires provable computing effort. The effort costs electricity, which makes rewriting history expensive.
How much energy? Nobody sets it. Miners keep plugging in machines as long as rewards are worth more than their power, and difficulty rises to keep blocks about 10 minutes apart.
The loop that sets miningâs energy use
- 1
Rewards are worth money
Each block pays the block reward plus fees, in bitcoin.
- 2
Miners add machines
While hashing earns more than the power costs, it pays to plug in more.
- 3
Hashrate goes up
More machines means more guesses per second across the network.
- 4
Difficulty catches up
Every 2,016 blocks the target resets, so blocks stay about 10 minutes apart.
- 5
Margins shrink
Each machine now wins less. The least efficient ones switch off.
You can see the economics in live numbers. Miners as a whole are expected to earn the figure below each day, and at the assumed efficiency the network burns this much energy doing it:
$38.1M
Miner revenue per day
live estimate, incl. average fees
679 GWh
Energy per day
rough estimate at 28.2 J/TH
$56
Revenue per MWh used
revenue Ă· energy
1,003 EH/s
Network hashrate
live, updated hourly
Any miner who can buy power for less than that per MWh, with good enough machines, has a reason to add more. So when the bitcoin price rises, energy use tends to follow.
Is âenergy per transactionâ a fair measure?
Youâll often see a headline figure for the energy of one Bitcoin transaction. Itâs total energy divided by transaction count, and it misleads, because the two arenât linked. Miners hash just as hard for a block with one transaction as for a full one. Try it:
Try it: divide one blockâs energy
Same whatever you pick below. It comes from the hashrate estimate above, at 28.2 J/TH.
Each square is about 8 transactions.
âEnergy per transactionâ
2.4 MWh
The numbers you pick are yours, not measured block contents. The block energy is a rough estimate from live hashrate Ă assumed efficiency. Opening and closing a Lightning channel takes on-chain transactions, which this toy leaves out.
The per-transaction number moves a lot. The energy doesnât. It also ignores payments that settle off-chain. On the Lightning Network, two people open a channel with one on-chain transaction and can then pay each other many times without touching the chain.
Do better machines cut Bitcoinâs energy use?
Machines have become far more efficient. Hereâs what todayâs live hashrate would draw if every miner ran the same model:
Todayâs hashrate on one machine model, as a network power draw
The twist: efficiency doesnât lower the total on its own. A better machine earns more per kWh, so miners buy more of them and hashrate climbs. The energy budget is still set by rewards and power prices. Better machines mostly change how much security each kWh buys. The machine guide covers the hardware.
Where does Bitcoin mining get its power?
Mining is unusual as a power user. It needs no customers nearby, just a connection, and it can switch off in seconds. So miners go where power is cheapest, which is often power nobody else wants.
Cheap grid
Low-cost regions
Places with cheap hydro, wind, gas or nuclear power attract big sites, subject to local rules.
Stranded
Power with no buyer
Gas that would be flared at oil wells, or hydro and wind far from demand, can run miners on site.
Flexible
Switches off on demand
Farms can drop load when the grid is tight. Cambridgeâs survey reported 888 GWh switched off in 2023.
Heat
Heat reuse
Every watt ends up as heat. Some sites warm greenhouses or buildings, mostly with liquid cooling.
Where surveyed miners got their electricity
- Natural gas 38.2% · fossil
- Coal and oil 9.4% · fossil
- Hydro 23.4% · sustainable
- Wind 15.4% · sustainable
- Nuclear 9.8% · sustainable
- Solar and other 3.7% · sustainable
Read that with care. Itâs what companies told Cambridge, and they skew towards the US. Where mining happens also shifts. After China banned it in 2021, the US became the biggest hub, though Cambridgeâs mining map showed mining carried on in China too. The country breakdown is in the mining farm guide.
What are the real criticisms of Bitcoinâs energy use?
Some criticisms hold up well. Here they are, with what the data shows and whatâs still argued about.
It adds carbon emissions.
What the data says
Where miners burn fossil fuel, yes. Cambridge estimated about 39.8 Mt COâe a year, around 0.08% of global emissions, and natural gas was the largest single source in its survey.
Still argued about
Whether flared or surplus power should count the same as grid power, and whether miningâs flexibility helps grids add more wind and solar.
It uses as much power as a country.
What the data says
At about 0.54% of global electricity, itâs in the range of a mid-sized country, as the CBECI shows.
Still argued about
Whether thatâs worth it. That depends on how much you value a payment network no one controls, which is a judgment, not a measurement.
Machines turn into e-waste.
What the data says
ASICs only mine, so theyâre scrapped once they canât cover their power. Surveyed firms reported 86.9% of retired hardware reused or recycled.
Still argued about
That figure is self-reported, and the rest of the fleet isnât covered. Fast upgrade cycles still produce a steady stream of retired machines.
Farms are a burden on neighbours.
What the data says
Air-cooled machines are loud, and a large farm draws a steady load from the local grid.
Still argued about
How much that raises local power prices, and how much demand response payments offset it, varies from grid to grid.
Our honest read: miningâs energy use is large and deliberate, its footprint depends on the power mix, and the best evidence is published by Cambridge. Read the CBECI and decide for yourself.
How can you mine Bitcoin without the power bill?
With CloudMineCrypto you earn bitcoin from mining for free, and your phone doesnât do the hashing, so thereâs nothing on your power bill beyond running the app. Claim the free plan, or earn more plans by watching ads, playing games, completing offers and checking in daily. Your BTC balance grows while plans run, and you can withdraw to your own wallet, Lightning included. Want more speed? Add an optional paid plan.
$0
Free to start
Free plan, ads, games, offers and daily check-ins all add mining plans.
0 W
No hardware at home
No machine to buy, no noise, no heat and no extra power bill.
How plans and rewards work is in the cloud mining guide, and every free way to earn is in free Bitcoin mining. For mining with your own hardware, start with how to start Bitcoin mining.
Frequently asked questions
How much electricity does Bitcoin use?
Cambridge estimated about 138 TWh a year as of mid-2024, roughly 0.54% of global electricity use. Multiplying todayâs live hashrate by an assumed machine efficiency gives a rough current figure, which this page shows and lets you adjust.
Why does Bitcoin mining use so much energy?
Proof of work makes miners spend real computing effort to add a block, so rewriting history would cost as much energy again. Miners keep adding machines while rewards are worth more than the power, so the energy tracks the value of rewards rather than the number of users.
How much energy does one Bitcoin transaction use?
There isnât a meaningful answer. The network uses roughly the same energy whether a block holds one transaction or thousands, so dividing total energy by transactions gives a number that swings with block contents and ignores payments settled off-chain, such as Lightning.
Is Bitcoin mining bad for the environment?
Where it runs on fossil power it adds emissions: Cambridge estimated about 39.8 Mt COâe a year, around 0.08% of global emissions. Miners in its survey also reported 52.4% sustainable power and flexible use of surplus energy. How you weigh that depends on the grid and on what you think Bitcoin is worth.
Does mining use renewable energy?
Partly. Firms in Cambridgeâs 2024 survey reported 52.4% sustainable electricity, with natural gas the largest single source at 38.2%. The survey is self-reported and leans towards US companies.
Does a CloudMineCrypto plan use electricity on my phone?
No hashing happens on your phone, so a plan adds nothing to your power bill beyond running the app. You can start free with the free plan, ads, games, offers and daily check-ins, and withdraw to your own wallet. Rewards are estimates, and a plan doesnât give ownership of any specific hardware or pool.
Sources and further reading
- Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) · Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance
- Bitcoin mining map: methodology · Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance
- Cambridge Digital Mining Industry Report (April 2025) · Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance
- Bitcoin mining: new data reveal a surprising resurgence · Cambridge Judge Business School
- Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System · Satoshi Nakamoto (bitcoin.org)
- Antminer S21 XP specifications · Bitmain (manufacturer)
- Lightning Network · Bitcoin Wiki
Live figures on this page (network hashrate, block reward, BTC price) come from the CloudMineCrypto API, refreshed hourly, and are labelled where they appear. This guide is educational and not financial advice. CloudMineCrypto is not an investment product; rewards in the app are estimates and arenât guaranteed.
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