Just one Bitcoin transaction consumes the same amount of water used to fill a swimming pool

euronews.com:

A single Bitcoin transaction could use the same amount of water needed to fill a garden swimming pool, according to a new study on the world’s most popular cryptocurrency.

It estimates that in 2021 Bitcoin mining, used in part to create new Bitcoins, consumed over 1,600 gigalitres of water worldwide with each Bitcoin transaction using 16,000 litres of water on average.

The sheer scale of Bitcoin mining’s water consumption could impact drinking water if it continues to operate without regulation, especially in countries that are already battling water scarcity, including the United States, the study published in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability on Wednesday argued.

Mining Bitcoin requires huge computing power to solve mathematical equations on the Internet. Correct answers are then rewarded with a share of Bitcoin’s value.

Water, which is evaporated, is used to cool the computers at large data centres and also to lower the temperature of coal-and-gas-fired power plants that also power Bitcoin mining computers.

“It's just one backyard swimming pool going, going up in the air, literally evaporating on average per Bitcoin transaction,” said Alex de Vries, the study’s author and Ph.D. student at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

The environmental impact of mining Bitcoin has been widely documented, with the latest data from the United Nations University, showing that the crypto’s energy consumption for the year 2020 was more than the total energy consumption of a country like Pakistan for the same period.

However, how much water a Bitcoin transaction uses has been scarcely reported and is likely to increase.

With the rise in Bitcoin’s price to over $38,000 (€34,600), up almost five per cent in a week, de Vries said he expected