Bitcoin Miners Consuming $150,000 In Power Each Day

Bitcoin mining is the new gold rush, and it is costing upwards of $150,000 per day in electrical costs.

Bitcoins are mined by unlocking blocks of data that produce a specific pattern known as a Bitcoin “hash” algorithm. In order to mine for the Bitcoins, users often team up to share the cost of data mining. As each block is discovered, it leaves fewer blocks up for grabs. That means users spend more time looking for Bitcoins and therefore use more electricity.

As TechCrunch notes, because the process of Bitcoin mining is so intensive, users are often running high end graphics cards that are better equipped than CPUs when it comes to data mining. Those massive GPUs mean a higher power consumption rate.

According to Bitcoin tracking companyBlockchain.info, Bitcoin miners are consuming a crazy 1,005.59 megawatt hours of electrical consumption each day. Based on current national cost averages, that’s $150,000 per day.

While that is a lot of money to spend, Bitcoin Miners are earning $470,000 in Bitcoin-related revenue per day since Bitcoin currency is at an all time-high.

The real question will be whether or not Bitcoin mining stays profitable. The cost of Bitcoin mining is worth the reward at the moment because the virtual currency is worth so much money.

If you think it is time to get into the Bitcoin mining game on your own, you might want to think again, Bitcoin Miners typically work in teams and share computing cycles or they run massive computing rigs that do nothing but mine for Bitcoins 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Some experts are questioning the actual profits earned from the practice, noting that system deprecation and power consumption overtime could leave Bitcoin Miners in the red.

In the meantime, Bitcoin’s are a hot topic, and, with money to be made, we can likely expect the average power consumption per day for Bitcoin Miners to increase.