In brief
- Bitcoin’s energy consumption remains large, at an estimated 138TWh as of 2025.
- Recent academic research explores the broader environmental cost of Bitcoin mining, adding in carbon dioxide, water, e-waste, and land impacts.
- Policy pressure is rising as governments focus on what kind of power Bitcoin mining uses, where it is sited, and what externalities apply.
Professor Andrew Urquhart is Professor of Finance and Financial Technology and Head of the Department of Finance at Birmingham Business School (BBS).
This is the ninth installment of the Professor Coin column, in which I bring important insights from published academic literature on cryptocurrencies to the Decrypt readership. In this article, I discuss Bitcoin energy…
Oct 20 2025
