Watch Mining Hearing Live: Bitcoin Is More Energy-Efficient than Banks, Bitfury CEO Tells US Lawmakers
Traditional banking requires 2.5 times the amount of power as Bitcoin (BTC) to produce the same amount of value, and only proof-of-work (PoW) provides “a truly trustless system,” according to Brian Brooks, CEO of major blockchain technology firm Bitfury and a former Comptroller of the Currency in the US.
“Put differently, the banking system requires 573 TWh of power to produce USD 1 trillion of value. That is about 2.5 times the amount of power required to produce the same amount of value in bitcoin,” Brooks said in his pre-published testimony for a hearing in the US House of Representatives on Thursday.
“[…] that differential may explain why the traditional banking system as an industry has generally been critical of cryptocurrency activities,” Brooks added.(The hearing was delayed until 4:30 PM UTC.)
The comparison between Bitcoin and the banking system came after Brooks first compared digital gold to its physical counterpart. Bitcoin mining and gold mining “consume approximately the same amount of electricity per year,” Brooks’ testimony said, adding that gold mining also “presents a host of other environmental concerns,” including solid waste, chemical consumption, and pollutants.
“Thus, for example, if bitcoin competes as a store of value with gold, then an appropriate question is whether the energy used in Bitcoin mining produces more economic value per unit of energy than gold mining,” Brooks noted, adding:
“If bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies compete with banks as a means of payment, then an appropriate question is whether the energy used in bitcoin mining produces more economic value per unit of energy than banking.”
Commenting on proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains, which use less energy than proof-of-work chains like
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