In conclusion of its first quarterly survey released on Thursday, Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC) revealed that 56% of the energy used in mining bitcoin globally in the second quarter was a sustainable electricity mix.
Compared to the 36.8% estimate of green energy obtained from the preceding quarter, the present value is 2x the previous one. With a sustainable electricity mix of 56%, the bitcoin mining industry comes off as one of the most sustainable industries worldwide.
The survey on the amount of green energy used in bitcoin mining is noteworthy as the crypto industry has received several severe criticisms on the environmental impacts of the energy used in mining crypto, especially bitcoin.
Citing “increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions” as a reason, Elon Musk announced that his electric car company, Tesla, would stop receiving bitcoin as payments for services from clients.
Elon Musk released this announcement after the company made a huge purchase of $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and barely two months after the company started accepting the leading cryptocurrency from US customers, as well as holding the proceeds.
The State Council’s Financial Stability and Development Committee of China also mentioned that the country will take strong actions against bitcoin mining and trading activities to avoid financial risks. Weeks later, provincial governments in Xinjiang and Sichuan ordered that electricity should not be supplied to bitcoin mining farms which reduced the network’s hash rate by about 70 EH/s.
However, the survey conducted by BMC points to the fact that more bitcoin miners are switching to renewable energy supply for mining. BMC, which was founded in May 2021 and specializes in electricity consumption and a sustainable power mix of bitcoin metrics, revealed that the information used in the recent survey conducted on Bitcoin energy mix was collected from over 32% of the current global bitcoin network.
Regarding the result of the survey, the council said, “Based on this data, it is estimated that the global mining industry’s sustainable electricity mix had grown to approximately 56%, during Q2 2021, making it one of the most sustainable industries globally.”
