Michael Saylor: Nearly 60 Percent of Bitcoin Mining Energy Comes from Sustainable Sources

MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor has revealed via a blog post that contrary to what critics of proof-of-work (PoW) algorithms say, Bitcoin (BTC) mining is the most efficient, cleanest, industrial use of electricity. Saylor says Bitcoin’s energy efficiency growth currently dwarfs that of other industries, with roughly 59.5 percent of the energy used to mine BTC coming from sustainable sources.

Bitcoin (BTC) Energy Usage Negligible 

Bitcoin (BTC) and other proof-of-work (PoW) based cryptocurrencies are often criticized for their insatiable appetite for energy, with several reports in the past claiming that Bitcoin mining operations gulp electricity more than some tiny countries.

In a bid to squash the ‘propaganda’ and ‘misinformation’ surrounding Bitcoin (BTC) mining, die-hard Bitcoin maximalist, Michael J Saylor has published a blog post detailing some of the impressive milestones reached by the world’s flagship cryptocurrency so far in terms of energy usage.

According to the 57-year-old Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) alumnus, the entire Bitcoin network consumes a negligible amount of electricity as compared to other industries and BTC mining is one of the most energy-efficient activities.

“The world produces more energy than it needs, and approximately a third of this energy is wasted. These last 15 basis points of energy power the entire Bitcoin Network – this is the least valued cheapest margin of energy left after 99.85 percent of the energy in the world is allocated to other uses,”

Argued Saylor.

Bitcoin (BTC) Energy Efficiency Rapidly Rising 

Saylor further noted that when compared to other industries, Bitcoin mining represents the most efficient, cleanest, industrial use of electricity and the orange coin’s energy efficiency (49 percent increase YoY) is improving faster than that of other industries.

Saylor has revealed that about 59.5 percent of the energy used during Bitcoin mining operations comes from only renewable sources.

“No other industry comes close (consider planes, trains, automobiles, healthcare, banking, etc). The Bitcoin network keeps getting more energy efficient because of the relentless improvements in the semiconductors (SHA-256 ASICs) that power the Bitcoin mining centers, combined with the halving of bitcoin mining rewards every four years that is built into the protocol,”

He stated, adding that this results in a guaranteed 18-36 percent increase in energy efficiency each year.

What’s more, Saylor has made it clear that Bitcoin’s value creation dwarfs that of tech giants like Google, Facebook, and others, as the value of its output is 100x more than the cost of energy it uses.

Ethereum, the world’s largest smart contracts blockchain successfully completed its transition to the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus during the early hours of September 15, 2022. While the move to PoS is expected to make the network more energy-efficient and scalable over time, Saylor has argued that PoW remains the ultimate consensus algorithm for creating real digital commodities.

The only proven technique for creating a digital commodity is Proof of Work (Bitcoin mining) deployed in a fair, equitable fashion (i.e no pre-mine, no ICO, no controlling foundation, no primary software development team, no series of forced hard fork upgrades that materially change the monetary protocol). 

That’s not all, Saylor also noted that all PoS-based crypto assets tick all the boxes of the Howie test and as such, may soon be categorized as securities by regulatory authorities like the U.S. SEC.

Importantly, while addressing the issue of carbon emission, Saylor stated that a massive 99.92 percent of CO2 emissions in the world are due to industrial uses of energy other than Bitcoin mining. 

“Bitcoin mining is neither the problem nor the solution to the challenge of reducing carbon emissions,” he said, adding that the much ‘noise’ about Bitcoin’s carbon footprint is fueled by promoters of other cryptos aiming to “distract regulators, politicians, and the public from the inconvenient truth that PoS crypto assets are generally unregistered securities trading on unregulated exchanges to the detriment of the retail investing public.”

At press time, the Bitcoin (BTC) price is hovering around $20,118, with a market cap of $385.30 billion.