Study reveals Cryptocurrency mining energy consumption in China alone will be higher than Italy in three years

80% of the world's crypto mining happens in China. Electricity consumption from China's Bitcoin mining operations will pass Italy's electricity consumption by 2024. That's what scientists say in Nature. "Without timely intervention, the climate efforts that the country did will be nullified," they say.

According to the researchers, this is due to the cheap electricity in the country and the relatively easy access to mining parts from manufacturers reports tweakers.net Bitcoin is using the most energy per transaction and coin mined, other cryptos are to follow suit. Four out of ten Chinese miners would use electricity produced from coal, the remaining 60 percent run on renewable energy. Due to the large share of coal-based energy consumption, the researchers argue that China's Bitcoin mining activities could nullify the climate efforts the country has already made. The researchers also expect that Chinese mining activities will only increase.

“Without political intervention, the annual energy consumption of China's Bitcoin mining activities will reach 297 terawatt-hours by 2024

As a comparison, we are based in the Netherlands, we as a country currently use 107 THh per year.