The average energy consumption for one single Bitcoin transaction in 2025 could equal several hundreds of thousands of VISA card transactions. This according to a source that tries to estimate the energy consumption of both Bitcoin (BTC) over time. It does so by estimating how much income miners possibly spend on electricity, as there is no institution that tracks how much energy the cryptocurrency actually consumes. This also applies to which countries mine the most Bitcoin, as this is estimated by cross referencing IP addresses. A matter of design: why Bitcoin consumes so much energy Of all the 21 million Bitcoins that can exist at the same time, nearly 90 percent was already mined in mid-2021. This, however, does not necessarily mean that the Bitcoin supply is running out as the last Bitcoin was forecast to be mined around the year 2140. This is a design choice in the cryptocurrency: The closer Bitcoin gets to its supply limits, the computing power – and therefore energy - needed to mine goes up incrementally. The BTC mining difficulty or amount of computing power being applied to mine Bitcoin reflects that: Bitcoin mining in, say, 2014 – when there were less Bitcoin in circulation - was easier and less energy consuming than in 2021. By then, there were significantly more coins in circulation and the cryptocurrency’s design essentially tries to halt the creation of more. China’s doubts on whether Bitcoin is green Over the course of 2021, the price of Bitcoin was over 60,000 U.S. dollars but by the summer only half of that amount remained. This was partially caused by China’s Financial Stability and Development Committee trying to curb domestic crypto mining since May 2021 – which led some to doubt whether there was a future for the cryptocurrency. China’s efforts are said to have been triggered due to remote mining farms demanding so much electricity that idle coal mines were restarted without government approval. Whilst this was never confirmed, China is generally seen as the most coal consuming country in the world.

BTC energy consumption was the size of a small country in 2025, according to a comparison that puts the crypto's footprint against that of 10 global nations. The source mentions it picked the countries due to their high-energy consumption. As of December 2025 and based on the source's estimates on how big the Bitcoin energy consumption is around that time in TWh per year, the virtual coin's electrical footprint was around **** percent of Russia's entire energy production. The source reaches this estimate by assuming that miner costs and income are the same thing: The higher the miner income, the more powerful machinery it can support. Essentially, the source first calculates how much miners earn, then estimates how much of this income is spent on electricity and how much per kWh, to finally be converted into consumption figures.

Ethereum's annualized footprint in electricity consumption has remained minimal following the Ethereum Merge in September 2022. Originally, the energy required to mine Ethereum in 2021 exceeded the consumption of countries like Colombia or Czechia - but the move away from proof of work (mining) to proof of stake (staking) changed things substantially. This according to a source that tries to estimate the energy consumption of Ethereum (ETH). It does by assuming that miner costs and income are the same thing: The higher the miner income, the more powerful machinery it can support. Essentially, the source first calculated how much miners earn, then estimated how much of this income is spent on electricity and how much per kWH, to finally be converted into consumption figures. The main reason this figure is an estimate, is due to the decentralized nature of Ethereum or cryptocurrencies in general: There is no central authority that tracks how many computers there are or where miners submit figures. As of November 2025, Ethereum's energy consumption is still of importance for developments regarding NFTs and other applications of decentralized finance or DeFi - as the market share of the Ethereum blockchain in DeFi far exceeds that of other blockchains.