Bitcoin Mining & Electricity

According to a new report, this year Bitcoin could have a more power consumption than electric vehicles in 2025.

Bitcoin mining process, which takes a lot of energy could require up to 140 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity during this year, which is about 0,6 % of global usage. This view yesterday gave Nicholas Ashworth from Morgan Stanley.

This amount is the same as Argentina’s total electricity consumption and much higher than Morgan Stanley’s projected global electric vehicle demand in 2025, which consisits of 125 TWh.

“Mining is very profitable at today’s bitcoin price, and if cryptocurrencies continue to appreciate we expect global mining power consumption to increase,” Ashworth said.

Also he mentioned that cryptocurrency mining could have a material impact on utility stocks in the nearest future.

“While our 2018 projected 125 TWh of bitcoin power demand is a big number, on a global basis this is still not a needle mover for our sector. However, if this number grows by orders of magnitude beyond 2018, and it is not clear that this will be the case, it could become meaningful to utilities and renewable energy developers.”

Ashworth thinks that there is a new opportunity for renewable energy developers as well as for new big oil firms due to the rising demand of bitcoin.

South Korea Ban

Bitcoin saw a big drop today, after South Korea made an announcement of planning to outlaw the cryptocurrencies. The digital coin fell almost $2000 in hours to the mark of $13,000

This happened after high-specialised investor Warren Buffet yesterday warned that cryptocurrency market will have a bad ending.