Around the world, Bitcoin miners use approximately 348 terawatt hours of energy (the prefix “tera-” meaning trillions) per year. That means that crypto mining alone consumes more energy annually than most countries in the world use for all residential and commercial activity, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Australia, according to data aggregated by Visual Capitalist.
As it stands, the majority of Bitcoin mining already takes place in the U.S., accounting for 37.8 percent share of the entire network by hashrate (a computational measure of a cryptocurrency’s blockchain). That’s been the case since the summer of 2021, when China—which previously represented 75 percent of the hashrate—initiated a crackdown on the digital asset, fearing that the highly volatile currency could undermine their nation’s monetary system.
Ultimately, Trump’s promise that more crypto mining would make the country “energy dominant” simply doesn’t make sense. Mining Bitcoin doesn’t produce energy, as Trump’s call for “energy dominance” would imply. Instead, it requires a massive but incredibly unpredictable amount of energy to produce.
