“Millions of people who have neither mined nor traded a bitcoin are nevertheless paying for bitcoins to exist. That’s because the vast computing power needed to create new bitcoins consumes enormous amounts of electricity and has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses, according to University of California at Berkeley’s Matteo Benetton and Adair Morse and Chicago Booth’s Giovanni Compiani.

In the United States, crypto mining could cost residential and business ratepayers $1 billion a year, the researchers estimate. Bitcoin miners have been draining so much electricity in parts of China that the authorities are kicking them out of the country, in part to reduce coal consumption and help meet the nation’s carbon-reduction targets. Cheap electricity in places such as Texas is expected to make the US a leading refuge for crypto miners.”

Learn more about Benetton’s research into the hidden cost of blockchain technologies.

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