Dollar for dollar, crafting cryptocurrency sucks up ‘more energy’ than mining gold, copp…

Cryptocurrencies require as much, if not more, energy to mine as precious metals like copper, gold or platinum, according to some latest calculations.

The figures were jotted down by Max Krause, a researcher at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, and Thabet Toloymat, an environmental engineer working in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the US.

The pair attempted to estimated the average amount of energy consumed to generate one dollar’s worth of stuff, and the bottom line is: crafting Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Monero consumes at least the same amount of energy as mining copper, gold, platinum and rare earth oxides, apparently.

“From 1 January 2016 to 30 June 2018, we estimate that mining Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Monero consumed an average of 17, 7, 7 and 14 MJ (MegaJoules) to generate $1, respectively,” according to the duo’s paper, published in Nature this week.

…