Dead-end bitcoin mining wastes as much energy as Switzerland's entire hydropower generation capacity

Network latency in bitcoin mining is driving massive energy waste ‪—‬ the annual equivalent of the total generation capacity of Switzerland's entire hydroelectric power system, scientists say. This wasted energy results from inefficiencies in the mining process and increasing competition among bitcoin miners.

In a new study published May 26 in the journal PNAS Nexus, the researchers aimed to provide a theoretical model to measure patterns within the networks powering bitcoin's distributed ledger system.

But they also calculated that in 2025, around 16,000 megawatts was wasted by fruitless bitcoin mining attempts, where competing mining efforts exert massive computational power to obtain the same units of bitcoin. This is roughly equivalent to the total generation capacity of Switzerland's 701 hydropower plants, according to statistics from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy.