Bitcoin’s energy hunger has triggered a passionate debate in the academic literature as well as in the general public about the energy consumption of cryptocurrencies. Several scholars have suggested methodologies to estimate Bitcoin’s energy consumption, and yet, most studies have been focusing exclusively on Bitcoin and ignored that more than 500 further mineable coins and tokens exist. In this Commentary, we analyze 20 cryptocurrencies with ‘proof-of-work’ algorithms, which account for more than 98% of the total market capitalization in order to provide a rough estimate of the total energy consumption of cryptocurrencies. Based on the underlying algorithms, current hash-rates, and suitable mining devices, we conclude that Bitcoin accounts for 2/3 of the total energy consumption, while understudied cryptocurrencies represent the remaining 1/3.
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