Bitcoin electronic Waste
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Bitcoin mining ASIC manufacturing vs eWaste
Manufactured -
These figures are derived from my spread sheet. |
Total mass MANUFACTURED
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Metals are THE most recycled materials, & Bitcoin mines are mostly metal plus they have the recycling advantages of-
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We only have to compare that to 6,600,000t/y eWaste from TVs / Monitors (probably only 50% recycled) to see we have much bigger problems. Of course, many of these screens & computers will have come from the Banking & Finance industry - That Bitcoin is offsetting.
Bitcoin eWaste per transaction
Some estimates (guess who) put this at a ridiculous 376g per Transaction (Tr) - er no ❌
Let’s do the math -
Transactions are ≈ 2% of block rewards. So only fair to award 2% of ewaste to transactions, the other 98% being awarded to creation of new coins.
450 tonnes ewaste x 2% = 9t eWaste per year
Number of transactions per day including lightning & batched ≈ 300,000,000
300,000,000 x 365)= 109,500,000,000 transactions per year
Mass of waste per transaction = eWaste per year / transactions per year
9t / 109,500,000,000 = 0.0008g eWaste per transaction
The approximate mass of a extremely small grain of sand.
Let’s do the math -
Transactions are ≈ 2% of block rewards. So only fair to award 2% of ewaste to transactions, the other 98% being awarded to creation of new coins.
450 tonnes ewaste x 2% = 9t eWaste per year
Number of transactions per day including lightning & batched ≈ 300,000,000
300,000,000 x 365)= 109,500,000,000 transactions per year
Mass of waste per transaction = eWaste per year / transactions per year
9t / 109,500,000,000 = 0.0008g eWaste per transaction
The approximate mass of a extremely small grain of sand.
Waste fud
Yet again many unfounded claims about Bitcoin disproved such as in 2021 Alex de Vries (Dogdyconomists) claimed 37,000 t of electronic waste every year !
It is completely impossible to scrap WAY more than you have manufactured.
At that point the most manufactured in 1 year was 15,000t , and you would not be scrapping the new ASICs, you would be scrapping the 2-4 year old worn out or obsolete ASIC, so an average of 2017 to 2019 manufacturing output ≈ 5000t X 3% ≈ 150t
It is completely impossible to scrap WAY more than you have manufactured.
At that point the most manufactured in 1 year was 15,000t , and you would not be scrapping the new ASICs, you would be scrapping the 2-4 year old worn out or obsolete ASIC, so an average of 2017 to 2019 manufacturing output ≈ 5000t X 3% ≈ 150t
Inside an ASIC
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51% of ASICs are air cooled type
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Roughly 49% ASICs are water cooled
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CONCLUSION
Bearing in mind a typical Bitcoin transaction is £50,000 -£1,000,000 Pound for Pound I’m sure the banking sector has much greater quantities of eWaste + paper, vehicle + employee waste.
