在线月刊《Nature Sustainability》登载的一篇论文指出，挖比特币需要的能量比开采铜、金等金属还多。

人们经常把比特币称为“新型黄金”。此项研究发现，“开采”出1美元比特币需要的能量大约是开采黄金的三倍。

俄亥俄州橡树岭科学与教育研究所的研究人员还比较了挖掘其他加密货币消耗的能量，结果发现它们普遍比开采黄金更“费电”。不过，与此项研究覆盖的所有其他金属和加密货币相比，开采铝矿的能耗要高的多。

开采金属矿藏和挖掘加密货币需要的技术及工具有天壤之别。

加密货币采矿是“矿工”对一组加密货币交易进行验证并将其添加到区块链中的过程，区块链则是一个公共交易账本。

此项工作需要强大的计算机、服务器和冷却设备，而所有这些都让能源成本节节攀升。在部分国家和地区，能源开支已经让购买一个比特币的价格和“开采”一个比特币所需要的电费大致相当。

今年，和比特币挖矿有关的电力需求预计将增长两倍。如果真是如此，加密货币采矿消耗的能量将超过阿根廷的全国用电量。

受该趋势影响，一些城市已经提高了加密货币采矿的电费。（财富中文网）

The “mining” of bitcoin, a type of cryptocurrency, requires more energy than that of mining metals like copper and gold, according to a paper published in Nature Sustainability.

Mining bitcoin, which the report points out is often referred to as “new gold,” requires about three times more energy per U.S. dollar than that required to mine gold, the study found.

Researchers at the Oakridge Institute for Science and Education in Ohio also compared the energy consumption required to mine other cryptocurrencies, which were all found to be generally higher than that of gold. Aluminum mining, however, required substantially more energy than all other metals and cryptocurrencies compared in the study.

Mining metal and mining cryptocurrency require a vastly different set of skills and tools.

Cryptocurrency mining is a process in which a “miner” packages a block of cryptocurrency transactions into a blockchain, a ledger of transactions.

The work requires powerful computers, servers, and cooling devices, which all add to growing energy costs. In some countries, energy costs make purchasing a Bitcoin as expensive as mining one.

The power demand associated with Bitcoin mining is predicted to triple this year and if it does, the energy consumption required to mine cryptocurrency will surpass that of entire countries.

The trend has led some municipalities to raise energy prices for cryptocurrency mining operations.