Estimating the climate and health damages of Bitcoin mining in the US: Is Bitcoin underwater?

ABSTRACT

Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC), based on the proof-of-work mining production scheme create significant social costs. This analysis monetarily estimates the health and climate damages of BTC mining in the United States (US) from September 2019 to December 2021, and then compares these damages to BTC’s market price. We further show the spatial dispersion of BTC’s ‘social damage-to-market price’ ratio across US states. If this benchmark ratio is >1, then it is a clear indicator of an unsustainable technology. Results indicate significant geographic hotspots and periods when BTC mining generates social costs that exceed the market price—i.e. instances where BTC is underwater. On average, for the US, damages represented 49% of the value of the coins generated and BTC was underwater on approximately one-quarter of days between September 2019 and December 2021. Several US states have average damages that exceed the value of each BTC mined.

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• Bitcoin
• proof-of-work
• social costs
• climate damages
• health impacts

JEL codes:

• E44
• G1
• Q4
• Q51

Disclosure statement

The authors have no interests to disclose and did not receive any funding for this work.

Notes

¹ Global BTC hashrates per second: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate.